Le Crime

A cross between The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and A Year in Provence, this ingenious thriller gets stunning raves from one and all:

A marvel. - Olen Steinhauer - Riveting. - France Today - Elements of Agatha Christie and Robert Ludlum. - Bookreporter.com - ’Superbe’. - Jim Fusilli - Like a good Alan Furst or Graham Greene. - The Washingtonian - Engaging. - Publishers Weekly

Le Crime is a story of political intrigue, corruption and jealousy. It is also a story of love and friendship and, of course, France.

When political intrigue drove Louis Morgon from a successful career at the State Department, he moved to a cottage in France, far from Washington and what he called the sordid world. He took up painting. He grew vegetables and flowers. He ate long, lovely meals on the terrace overlooking fields of sunflowers. He thought that he had found happiness.

Then one day Louis’s past lands squarely on his doorstep. It does so in the shape of a dead man. His throat has been slit. He wears a cap with liberte embroidered on it. Except for the local cop, Jean Renard, the police are strangely uninterested. This seems peculiar to Renard, but not to Louis. He knows who the murderer is. He also knows that he is likely to be the next victim. And there is very little he or Renard or anyone else can do. Each clue they find raises more questions than it answers. Nothing is as it appears.

Louis’s best hope is to turn the tables on his murderer. Instead of knowledge, he has only his intuition and his intelligence. Instead of power or influence, he has only his own past. Louis finds himself on a lonely and dangerous journey of self-discovery. He thought he was beyond surprises. But every turn of the road reveals new mysteries, and the resolution is a shock.

This book was previously published as A French Country Murder.

Also known for his cartoons in The New Yorker, this is Peter Steiner’s first novel in the Louis Morgon thriller series; the second, L’Assassin, was published by Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Minotaur. Le Crime was originally published in hardcover under the title A French Country Murder.