The Missing Corpse
A Brittany Mystery
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
"Roll over Maigret. Commissaire Dupin has arrived." —M.C. Beaton on Death in Brittany
"Very satisfying…along the lines of Martin Walker’s novels set in Dordogne, or M.L. Longworth’s Aix-en-Provence mysteries." —Booklist on Murder on Brittany Shores
The Missing Corpse is internationally bestselling author, Jean-Luc Bannalec’s fourth novel in the Commissaire Dupin series. It’s picturesque, suspenseful, and the next best thing to a trip to Brittany.
Along the picturesque Belon River, home of the world famous oyster beds, between steep cliffs, ominous forests and the Atlantic Ocean, a stubborn elderly film actress discovers a corpse. By the time Commissaire Dupin arrives at the scene, the body has disappeared. A little while later, he receives a phone call from the mystical hills of Monts d'Arree, where legends of fairies and the devil abound: another unidentified body has turned up. Dupin quickly realizes this may be his most difficult and confounding case yet, with links to celtic myths, a sand theft operation, and mysterious ancient druid cults.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bannalec's droll fourth Brittany mystery (after 2018's The Fleur de Sel Murders) finds Commissaire Georges Dupin, who's been banished from a Parisian post to "the end of the world," set to attend a required seminar whose topic is "Conducting Systematic and Systemic Conversations in Investigative Situations." Fortunately, he's able to skip the seminar after receiving a call that sends him to the banks of the Belon River, where a corpse has been discovered. By the time Dupin arrives at the crime scene, the unidentified body has disappeared. Then another body turns up that's quickly linked to the first, elusive victim. A handful of suspects are all connected to Port Belon's world famous oyster industry. Subplots include the theft of crucial beach sand and an uptick in Dupin's love life. Bannalec's easy, digressive, but occasionally plodding narrative touches on Breton culture, from druids to bagpipe bands. The usual food obsessions and Parisian fish-out-of-water tropes become more amusing with each installment, making Dupin something of a contemporary provincial Poirot.