The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau

Manfred Baumann is a loner. He has always lived in the nondescript French town of Saint-Louis. Shy and awkward, a man of habit, he spends his days working in the local bank and his evenings in the drab Restaurant de la Cloche where he can surreptitiously observe Adèle Bedeau, its sullen but alluring waitress. Until, one day, Adèle vanishes.


Georges Gorski, a detective haunted by his failure to solve one of his first murder cases, is called in to investigate. Manfred is rattled, and the careful routine of his life starts to crumble around him. And that's when he meets Alice Tarrou.


Graeme Macrae Burnet's spellbinding debut novel The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau is an intimate portrayal of an outsider in a small community, of a man who cannot shake the feeling he is always being watched, whose every moment is determined by the catastrophic secrets of his past.


Graeme Macrae Burnet was born and brought up in Kilmarnock and now lives in Glasgow. In between, he lived in Prague, Bordeaux, Porto and London. His debut novel, The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau, is a psychological crime thriller set in the small town of Saint-Louis on the French–Swiss border. His second book, His Bloody Project, which deals with a triple murder in a crofting village in the Scottish Highlands, has been longlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize.


‘Graeme Macrae Burnet creates true noir in the mysterious, funny and intelligent The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau.’ List, Top Scottish Books of the Year


‘A strikingly singular talent.’ Scottish Book Trust