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Translated by Siân Reynolds
Police lieutenant Richard Guérin works suicides in Paris, a thankless job that has led his predecessors down a rocky road, but he thrives on it. Guérin is a cop with scruples, working in a very dirty division. He has to determine whether it was suicide or murder when an oncoming truck kills a smiling young man running naked down a major thoroughfare.
Another strange suicide case lands on his desk when Alan Musgrave, a junkie, supposedly killed himself on stage in a private S&M club. Musgrave’s friend, American John Nichols, is living off the grid in southern France, but is forced to return to Paris to identify the body. Nichols finds the suicide call suspicious, and ends up working with Guérin on the investigation.
As more bizarre suicide cases land on his desk, Guérin puts his extraordinary puzzle solving skills to the test, finding the common thread that confirms his philosophy that “everything is connected.”
There are lots of interesting characters here, including Guérin’s dim-witted assistant, a Parisian park keeper who also happens to be an ex-con, and a beautiful German artist who covers her naked body in paint and flings herself at canvas. Guérin’s foul-mouthed parrot, inherited from his deceased mother, a former prostitute, adds an occasional lighter moment to this dark police procedural, winner of the Prix Quai du Polar crime fiction award in France.
For readers who enjoy Fred Vargas, the same translator does fine work here.
Copyright ©2014 Booklist, a division of the American Library Association.
11/14 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch
BED OF NAILS by Antonin Varenne. MacLehose Press (November 4, 2014). ISBN 978-1623651251. 256p.
Posted by Stacy Alesi 
Best friends Jeanie and Ben have chosen the wrong time to visit the City of Lights.
A Young Woman Tells You What She’s “Learned”
book itself. This is a memoir from a woman who, while definitely young, has an explosive career based not on her looks, like a young pop star or supermodel, but on her talent.
When Jason Danvers’s sister shows up in the middle of the night asking for a favor, his immediate impulse is not to get involved. He’d caught glimpses of her around town and convinced himself it couldn’t be her – it’s been five years, after all, and their parting that last time wasn’t under the best of circumstances. But Hayden swears all of that has changed. She has a job, she’s been sober for some time, and now she’s looking to make amends for her past.
A novel set in the Pacific Northwest beginning with a hunt for a wolf that has been killing and eating sheep and other domestic animals. The hunt fades into the background of the book as ex Sheriff Patrick Drake is released from 12 years of incarceration in prison into the watchful eye of his son Bobby who himself works as a deputy Sheriff. Patrick’s wife had passed away prior to the opening of the story, and while Patrick tried to continue to raise his family he soon fell into major monetary problems. His solution was to hook up with some rather unsavory men and was then convicted of one of the biggest crimes that had occurred in the area.
Life with Harper Lee
Ancestor Series Book 2
This is the 7th book Cleave has written featuring Christchurch, New Zealand detective Theodore Tate. It is absorbing, filled with constant action, and touches on the psychological need of families of crime victim’s desires for revenge. A common thread among people affected by criminal acts perpetrated against their loved ones is “Just give me five minutes alone with the animal that did this” Paul Cleave sets up a series of crimes orchestrated to grant just that wish for people whose families have been touched by a crime against one of their own.
How much difference do a few seconds really make? For Byron, they make quite a big difference. Huge, in fact. For Byron, two seconds means the breaking apart of his carefully built little world.
