Stonekiller
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
A woman is found butchered not far from an archaeological site
In the woods of the Dordogne, farmers and their pigs hunt the forest floor for truffles. It is June 1942, and one such farmer has found something unusual: the postmaster's wife, murdered and left to rot beneath the trees. By the time police inspectors Jean-Louis St-Cyr and Hermann Kohler arrive from Paris, she has been dead four days, and the flies have begun to feast. As Kohler combs the area, finding a picnic basket, two bottles of Champagne, and a collection of poisonous mushrooms, St-Cyr turns the body on its back. The woman has been mutilated, hacked to pieces by a blunt ax.
She died steps from the famous Lascaux caves, an invaluable archaeological site that has attracted the Führer's attention. The SS is about to descend on the area, a film crew in tow, confounding the investigation as they swarm like the flies on the postmaster's wife.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pluses outweigh negatives in this unusual, sometimes confusing but highly original mystery set in occupied France in 1942. Life goes on in the Dordogne, and so does crime, and someone must deal with it. The task of investigating a brutal homicide falls to an odd couple: Jean-Louis St-Cyr of the Surete Nationale and Hermann Kohler of the Gestapo, who last appeared in 1992's Mirage. When they attempt to solve the vicious murder of Ernestine Fillioux, whose body is found close by a cave filled with primitive art rivaling that of Lascaux, they encounter resistance at every turn. Madame Fillioux and her husband, Henri-Georges, long missing and presumed dead, had discovered the cave. Now the Nazi propaganda machine is ready to film a documentary linking the Third Reich to prehistory by means of the swastikas discovered in the cave artifacts. A bizarre cast of filmmakers headed by director Baron Von Strade have descended on the site. Excursions into pre-history and a grim look at living conditions in occupied France provide an intriguing backdrop as the two detectives strive toward the truth. Janes packs his somber mystery with forensic evidence and some rich descriptions of landscape. If the climax is too facile, Janes has nonetheless created a detective team as credible as it is unusual.
