When Charlie Cashel receives a call that his half sister Rosie has been found dead in the south of France, he travels to Cannes with his cousin Martin Hollingsworth.
But Rosie is not the only murder victim there are four others, Mayleen Constantinou, Jeanette Auvers, Veronique Dupris and Paul Barsi. What do these victims have in common, muses the newly appointed examining magistrate Cecile Galant. Only three of the bodies have been mutilated. Why not Rosie Cashel. Could they have two killers roaming the Riviera?
Investigating the murders are Inspector Pierre Maubourg, an interesting character, who suspect his wife of having an affair, and his side-kick Montvallon. The police wants it all cleared up as quickly as possible, so as not to disrupt the forthcoming film festival for which Cannes is famous, but the recently appointed Cecile Galant is a hands on investigator, and has a tough reputation from her time cleaning up crime in Marseilles. She wants the truth, but will the politics of the police department stand the truth.
Returning to London, Charlie is dissatisfied with his life and in particular with his girlfriend , who has turned out to have hidden depths, in fact depths that Charlie would have preferred to have remained hidden.. When he receives a strange package from France he is intrigued and returns to France to investigate its source.
He recives some rather rough handling from the police, who are not pleased to see him. But he is undeterred, and pursuing the clue, he has received, he starts asking questions. He meets Dr Durrant who he learns was a frequent visitor to the Villa Blue when Rosie was living there. He also meets up with Susanna Washington, and very soon they are both in fear for their lives.
An intriguing mystery which seems centred around a painting by Leclant, but what significance can this painting have, and to whom does it actually belong. Cecile sends Maubourg to discover the background to the painting.
The whole story is overshadowed by the brooding presence of a mobster ‘White Boy’, so called because he always wears a white suit. But why would he be interested in Charlie and Susanna?
Julia Franklin is one of my favourite readers and she did a fine job with this
book. Although she provided good interpretations of all the characters I found
that I identified her with Cecile Galant.
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Lizzie Hayes
Other books are Let There Be Blood, The Egyptian Coffin, Fools Gold, In the
Kingdom of the Mists, and Death at Versailles
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Lizzie Hayes
Donald James is a renowned historian, the author of several books, two of my
favouites being A Spy At Evening and The House of Janus. He also
has a series featuring Police Inspector Constantin Vadim set in Russia in 2015.