The Stranger in the Seine
A Novel
-
-
4.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
From an international bestselling author: one foggy Paris night, a young woman is fished out of the Seine with no memory of who she is —but the quest to identify her leads to a woman who is already dead.
On a winter night in Paris, a young woman is pulled naked out of the Seine. She has amnesia and bears no identifying marks apart from two peculiar tattoos. She is rushed to the infirmary of Paris police headquarters, but only a few hours later, she disappears.
DNA analysis reveals her identity. She is the famous pianist Milena Bergman. But that’s impossible, because Milena died in a plane crash more than a year ago. Raphael, Milena’s former fiancé desperate for answers, and Roxane, a cop hell-bent on proving herself after a recent fall from grace, spearhead the investigation. Their quest to uncover the truth quickly reveals secrets long buried, a web of impostors, and danger lurking in plain sight. Nevertheless, they are determined to get to the center of this mystery: How can a person be both dead and alive at the same time?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Musso (The Secret Life of Writers) combines a baffling mystery with a memorable lead in this superior thriller. Roxane Montchrestien, longtime member of a French police brigade that hunts down the country's most wanted, attempts to resign after she gets caught up in a street protest that turns violent. Instead, she's transferred to the Bureau of Unconventional Affairs, an X-Files-esque division established "to investigate unusual cases that the judicial police couldn't find any rational explanations for." Soon afterward, a naked, amnesia-stricken woman is found in the Seine, and she asks for Roxane's predecessor before slipping away from the hospital where she's been recuperating. The plot thickens when Roxane learns that a DNA sample from the unidentified woman matches pianist Milena Bergman, who died a year earlier in a plane crash. Roxane teams up with Milena's fiancé to ferret out the truth, uncovering a web of deceit in the process. Musso delivers a satisfying resolution to the puzzle she constructs, and Roxane's inner conflicts about staying on the force in a time of social upheaval lend welcome emotional depth. Devotees of Christopher Fowler's Peculiar Crimes Unit series will be enthralled.
