Deeply unsettling yet compulsively readable.
A horrific real-life quintuple murder in a sleepy French village inspired this novel.
What would it take to provoke extreme savagery in a seemingly normal person? This is the question Anna Guillot explores after her husband, Constant, kills five members of the Langlois family—Bakary, Sylvia, and their three children—in a fit of extreme rage. For a long time, the residents of the placid French village of Carmac haven't felt any real threats. They watched the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris at a remove, through televised media coverage. All that changes when Bakary Langlois arrives with his family. Not only is Bakary Black, he is also rich, a markedly different social class than most other Carmac residents. His custom-built chalet is a source of envy, especially for Constant, his neighbor. Anna narrates two stories: One looks back at her husband’s early days as a promising pole vaulter whose athletic dreams are crushed by a nasty accident while the other details the systematic resentment that builds in an already fractured Constant, whose perceived indignities are compounded when Anna finds work as a maid at the Langlois chalet. Then the cauldron of simmering resentment boils over when Bakary swindles Constant out of his parents’ life savings: 8,000 euros. In her first novel to be translated into English, Sedira packs a powerful punch, exploring the class-race divide through Constant, Anna, and the rest of the town’s residents. The graphic murders stand in stark contrast to Sedira's subtle accounting of Constant’s tortured path. At the center of the tragedy is complicity: Constant is never made to realize that a bad hand might be crippling but not reason enough to take it out on the perceived “other.”
Deeply unsettling yet compulsively readable.Pub Date: July 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-14-313627-9
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
This propulsive thriller twists into the dark and bloody underbelly of the world of fine art.
The discovery that a revered artist’s sculpture contains a human bone sets off scandal and violence.
Art historian James Becker has what seems like a sweet deal. He’s the curator of the collection of the Fairburn Foundation, housed at a stately home owned by the Lennox family: Sebastian, Becker’s best friend, and his bitter mother, Lady Emmeline. Becker’s wife, Helena, was Sebastian’s fiancee first, but they’re all very civilized about it and happily awaiting the birth of her baby. The centerpiece of the Fairburn collection is works by the late Vanessa Chapman, an artist about whom Becker wrote his thesis, and with whom he is somewhat obsessed. Partly, it’s because of her great talent, but she was also a glamorous figure, a beauty who, as she became successful, sequestered herself on an isolated Scottish tidal island called Eris. She had a dark side—lots of stormy relationships, plus a philandering mooch of a husband who vanished without a trace a few decades ago. Her reputation, though, has risen after her death—so much so that the Fairburn has loaned some of her works to the Tate Modern. That’s where a forensic anthropologist sees one of her sculptures, made of found objects that include what’s described as an animal bone. The scientist is sure the bone is human, and soon Becker finds himself scrambling to prevent scandal. Vanessa willed her works and papers to the foundation, but some of them are still on Eris, guarded by her longtime friend Grace Haswell. A retired doctor, Grace lived with Vanessa off and on over the years and nursed her through her fatal cancer. It was a surprise when Vanessa left her estate not to Grace but to Douglas Lennox, Emmeline’s husband and Sebastian’s father. Douglas was Vanessa’s gallerist and lover, but the two had a nasty falling-out. Sebastian is so frustrated by Grace’s refusal to turn over all of the bequest that he’s ready to sue her, but Becker believes he can negotiate, so off to the the island he goes. He finds far more treachery and shocking secrets than he expected, past and present alike. Hawkins keeps her cast tight, her wild setting ominous, and her plot moving fast.
This propulsive thriller twists into the dark and bloody underbelly of the world of fine art.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9780063396524
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Mariner Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Expert, but unsurprising.
The death of an old friend who was more than a friend sends Dr. Kay Scarpetta down her latest rabbit hole.
If every body tells a story, the corpse of 7-year-old Luna Briley sings the blues. On top of the many signs of ongoing physical abuse, there’s the fatal gunshot wound to her head. Ryder and Piper Briley, the wealthy and powerful parents who didn’t call the police until after their daughter died, insist that Luna’s death was an accident, or maybe a suicide. Scarpetta doesn’t think so, and her refusal to release the body to the Brileys’ hand-picked mortician moves them to legal action against her as Virginia’s chief medical examiner. You’d think it would be a relief to put this case aside for another when Scarpetta’s niece, Secret Service agent Lucy Farinelli, calls her and ferries her by helicopter to an abandoned Oz theme park owned by Ryder Briley, but this one’s even more heartbreaking. Scarpetta is there to examine the body of astrophysicist Sal Giordano, her close friend and former lover, who was evidently kidnapped, held in captivity for several hours, and tossed out of an unidentified aircraft. The leading suspects are the Brileys; Carrie Grethen, Lucy’s sociopathic ex-lover, with whom Scarpetta has repeatedly tangled in the past; and the UFO that dumped Giordano’s body without leaving the usual traces for air-traffic technologies to pick up. The multiple rounds of physical examinations Scarpetta conducts on both victims are every bit as meticulous and gripping as fans would expect; the killer’s identity is neither surprising nor interesting, but Cornwell juggles her trademark forensics, and the paranormal hints she’s become increasingly invested in, more dexterously than usual.
Expert, but unsurprising.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2024
ISBN: 9781538770382
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
BOOK TO SCREEN
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