Deadly Camargue

Provence Mystery Series, Book 2

By: Cay Rademacher

Narrated by: Antony Ferguson

International Dagger Award shortlisted author Cay Rademacher delivers a captivating follow-up to his atmospheric Murderous Mistral.

August: The air over Provence shimmers in suffocating heat. Capitaine Roger Blanc and his colleague Marius Tonon are called to the Camargue. A black fighting bull has escaped from the pasture and has gored a cyclist. A bizarre accident, or so it initially seems. Until Blanc discovers evidence that someone left the gate open intentionally....

The deceased is Albert Cohen, political magazine reporter, fashion intellectual from Paris, TV personality. He was in the Camargue to write a major article on Vincent van Gogh. Yet what has that got to do with the attack? Blanc comes across Cohen's incomplete report during his investigation, which is not quite as harmless as it initially appeared. And also a spectacular, never solved burglary on the Côte d'Azur, and an old, deadly story that absolutely everyone wants to forget. By the end, Blanc feels a little more at home in his new surroundings in Provence. But he pays a high price for it.

©2015 Cay Rademacher; Translation copyright 2018 by Peter Miller (P)2018 Tantor

A jigsaw of phrases lifted from the first book?

The only reason that I got to chapter three was that I fell asleep about 10 minutes after the crime scene material -- and even then I kept checking back to the first book to see if I was really in the second book, not Murderous Mistral. Things could improve as the story goes on but I didn't want to get further through the book and jeopardise any chance of returning it. Your mileage may vary.

I do like the narrator and plan to check out other books he's done.