Product Description

This is ostensibly a detective story, about a crime that is committed in 1917, and solved 20 years later. The location is a small town in Northern France. The war is still being fought in the trenches, within sight and sound of the town, but the men of the town have been spared the slaughter because they are needed in the local factory. One freezing cold morning in the dead of winter, a beautiful ten year old girl, one of three daughters of the local innkeeper, is found strangled and dumped in the canal. Suspicion falls on two deserters who are picked up near the town. Their interrogation and sentencing is brutal and swift. Twenty years later, the narrator, a local policeman, puts together what actually happened. On the night the deserters were arrested and interrogated, he was sitting by the bedside of his dying wife. He believes that justice was not done and wants to set the record straight. But the death of the child was not the only crime committed in the town during those weeks.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #339996 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

DAILY EXPRESS (21/4/06)
'A hypnotic fairy tale of a detective story'

Review
'Claudel's exquisite, delicate writing is what makes this narrative a small masterpiece, to be read word for word, savouring the experience.' (GOOD BOOK GUIDE (May 2006) )

'Characters and settings are described with a sharp realism reminiscent of Simenon - or indeed Zola. Those looking for allegories about a society choosing not to acknowledge the horror at its centre will certainly find them; others will enjoy this elegantly constructed work for the deftness of its characterisation, its description of the rural landscape, and the unmistakable flavour that it conveys of French life.' (Christina Koning THE TIMES (15/4/06) )

'An atmospheric whodunit wreathed in winter mists and mystery, but given legs by a sturdy cast of rustic functionaries.' (INDEPENDENT (5/5/06) )

'A hypnotic fairy tale of a detective story' (DAILY EXPRESS (21/4/06) )

GOOD BOOK GUIDE (May 2006)
'Claudel's exquisite, delicate writing is what makes this narrative a small masterpiece, to be read word for word, savouring the experience.'

Customer Reviews

little gem
A well-polished little diamond of a novel. Set in a small French town during World War 1 a detective looks back on his part in the investigation of the murder of an angelic young girl. Especially considering this is translated from the original French - it is incredibly well-written. There doesn't seem to be a wasted word and the overall effect is a haunting melancholy that stays with you well after you've finished reading.

Basically, a stunning piece of writing that is my favourite read of recent years. Tres, tres Bon!!

A haunting story brilliantly told....
I've had a proof of this book sitting on my bookshelf for months. Yesterday, suffering literary indigestion from too many huge, overlong, inflated novels I picked it up. The cover doesn't exactly do much to encourage this, but the first paragraph is enough to draw you in...and I read it in two sittings, on one day. Amazing stuff...economical, moving, full of wonderful twists and surprises, and written in such a way that the whole life and society of this place is revealed. The First World War is there, but not as you've ever read about it before. The character of our narrator and the Procureur are both extraordinary, but every tiny part is fleshed out. Read this book. It will stay with you for ever. I can't believe there isn't some French director making a movie of it as I write...it'll be good, but nothing like the novel.

Quite beautiful
This is a deft and quite beautiful book, written in the way that so few French books seem to be written, that is, without abstractions (cf. Houllebecq et al.). It's set in a French town during WWI. A detective is ruminating on the investigation of the murder of a young girl. I liked the tone and pace, but found some of the melancholy a bit self-serving. Still, quite beautiful.