Very nice read and a good one for my students. ( )

Amazing how the author managed to get into the minds of his two main characters, the loner Manfred and the policeman, Gorski. According to the translator's comments the town and restaurant along with its customers were portrayed accurately although events were fictitious. ( )

Written as a translation from a French novel by Raymon Brunet, this is a psychological thriller. We enter the mind of a socially awkward bank manager, Manfred Baumann as he feels himself become the centre of a police investigation into the disappearance of a waitress, Adele Bedeau. Detective inspector Geroges Gorski investigates and it reminds him of the murder of a girl, Juliet Hurel, 20 years previously, his first murder investigation and one he was never happy with despite a successful conviction.

As Manfred’s psychosis increases, he becomes convinced that he is Gorski’s main suspect and is having him watched. He harbours a terrible secret that fuels his belief that everyone suspects him and results in behavioural changes that only serve to further increase his feeling of paranoia.

The story felt a bit protracted and the characters, although well depicted, felt alien to me, I couldn’t identify with either Manfred or Georges, both seemed rather flat. This could be a case of things lost in translation though, in which case the author has done a remarkable job!

A story of a story, similar to Burnet’s His Bloody Project, where the author distances himself from the narrative by pretending he isn’t the author.

I found His Bloody Project more compelling, although this one had the feel of a translated novel. That slight distance you can feel by not experiencing the story as the author had written it. ( )

This book was written before the highly successful "His Bloody Project "(shortlisted for the 2016 Booker Prize )and it has some of the same characteristics. The atmosphere and setting (in this case a small Alsatian town) have a surreal touch. It feels as if the whole town is caught in a dark time stop (although Mulhouse and Strasbourg,both very much alive, are in the vicinity). Furthermore, the whole town seems to be inhabited by thoroughly unpleasant and yes, slightly weird people(a bartender who hardly says a word, a desk sergeant who's not inclined to do any work, people in bars just staring at nothing (or their glass)).
This book is,although very well written, difficult to classify. The best description (that I can give)is a written film noir with undertones of Patrick Süskind and Simenon.
www.booksdogsandcats. wordpress.com ( )

Three instead of four stars because it took me some time to warm up to the story, but when it finally did I was captured by this psychological study - not so much of a crime novel really.
It reminds me of one of those slow French films of the 60s: not much happens, there are no graphic details, but every picture is reproduced like a impressionistic painting.
Well, that's my opinion anyway. ( )