The gifted writer Graeme Macrae Burnet makes a mockery of the genres publishers impose on credulous readers. The author of two ostensibly literary novels (both longlisted for the Booker prize), Burnet has also written a trilogy of self-declared thrillers. Yet the concluding volume, A Case of Matricide, demonstrates literary talent of the highest order.
It features the same protagonist as in the two earlier volumes – Inspector Georges Gorski, chef de police in Saint-Louis, a provincial French town near the Swiss border. Divorced from his wealthy wife, whose father is the corrupt and powerful mayor of Saint-Louis, Gorski lives rather sadly with his mother, who suffers from increasing dementia. He seems virtually friendless, and an embryonic relationship with the owner of a flower shop below his apartment is the only hint of romance in his life.
The inspector’s morose equilibrium is disturbed when a stranger shows up in town and attracts the suspicions of the keeper of the inn where he is staying.
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