In the unremarkable French town of Saint-Louis, a mysterious stranger stalks the streets; an elderly woman believes her son is planning to do away with her; a prominent manufacturer drops dead. Between visits to the town’s bars, Chief Inspector Georges Gorski mulls over the connections, if any, between these events, while all the time grappling with his own domestic and existential demons.
Graeme Macrae Burnet pierces the respectable bourgeois façade of small-town life in this deeply human story. He draws a wry humour from the tiniest of details and delves into the darkest recesses of his characters’ minds to present a fascinating puzzle that blurs the boundaries between suspect, investigator and reader in an entertaining, profound and moving novel.
andA Case of Matricide
‘Gripping and intelligent.’
‘Elegant, craftily written and frequently funny.’
‘A crime novel with post-modern flourishes… Beautifully observed…with understated humour… Wry, intelligent and a lot of fun.’
‘A stylish, atmospheric mystery with a startling twist … satisfies like Simenon and surprises like Ruth Rendell. I can’t give it any higher praise.’
‘A novel of mind-bending brilliance. Graeme Macrae Burnet is a master of muddying the waters, of troubling ideas of truth and identity, fiction and documentary, and Case Study shows him at the height of his powers.’
‘A disorienting, darkly funny novel, constructing a tale about the labyrinth of identity within the game-like frame of metafiction.’
‘A gripping crime story, a deeply imagined historical novel, and gloriously written all in one tour-de-force of a book.’
