Murderous Mistral
A Provence Mystery
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
International Dagger Award shortlisted author of The Murderer in Ruins, Cay Rademacher, delivers a beautifully atmospheric new story with a captivating main character in Murderous Mistral: A Provence Mystery.
Capitaine Roger Blanc, an investigator with the anti-corruption-unit of the French Gendarmerie, was a bit too succesful in his investigations. He finds himself removed from Paris to the south of France, far away from political power. Or so it would seem.
The stress is too much for his marriage, and he attempts to manage the break up while trying to settle into his new life in Provence in a 200-year-old, half-ruined house. At the same time, Blanc is tasked with his first murder case: A man with no friends and a lot of enemies, an outsider, was found shot and burned. When a second man dies under suspicious circumstances in the quaint French countryside, the Capitaine from Paris has to dig deep into the hidden, dark undersides of the Provence he never expected to see.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Peter Mayle fans will welcome this promising series launch from German author Rademacher (The Murderer in Ruins). Solving a political corruption case earns Paris gendarme Roger Blanc a punitive transfer to the south of France. His wife remains in Paris with her lover as Blanc moves into a decrepit house in Sainte-Fran oise-la-Vall e and joins the tiny hamlet's police force. The resentful commandant partners him with Marius Tonon, an alcoholic underachiever obsessed with a 20-year-old killing. When the suspect from that case is discovered shot and burned in a garbage dump, Blanc and Tonon take on the investigation, supervised by a judge who happens to be the wife of the minister who arranged Blanc's transfer. As the seasonal mistral blows through the parched countryside, wounded hero Blanc and his unlikely sidekick navigate political and social minefields in pursuit of a ruthless killer. The appealing locale, pervaded by the scent of wild thyme, and the charming residents of Sainte-Fran oise-la-Vall e make up for some uneven pacing.
