The Executioner Weeps

Description

On a quiet mountain road near Barcelona, a woman steps out in front of a car. When the driver, a well-known artist, stops to come to her aid, he finds she is alive, but without any memory of who she is or where she has come from. The only clue to her identity is the broken violin lying at her side. The artist tries to help her remember her past, and finds himself falling in love, but as secrets from the woman's forgotten life start to come to light, he finds his new romance turning into a nightmare...

Frederic Dard (1921-2000) was one of the best known and loved French crime writers of the twentieth century. Enormously prolific, he wrote more than three hundred thrillers, suspense stories, plays and screenplays, under a variety of noms de plume, throughout his long and illustrious career, which also saw him win the 1957 Grand prix de litterature policiere for The Executioner Weeps. Dard's Bird in a Cage, The Wicked Go to Hell, Crush and The Gravediggers' Bread are also available or forthcoming from Pushkin Vertigo.

The French master of noir Observer Disturbing from the outset with strong echoes of Dard's hero Simenon Sunday Times Crime Club (star pick) A great story full of suspense and intriguing twists International Crime Fiction (blog) Searing, dark and economical... Dard... expertly blends glossy thrills, social commentary and escapist lust Hits the Fan (blog) It's exceedingly clever - when surprising things happen they slap you in the face for being so obvious, so necessary and so vital yet so surprising at the same time, and you can only squirm more enjoyably into your seat as you read on Bookbag This short, sly novel of the night has more than enough substance and mystery to keep readers awake and engrossed The National No question: for me, he was the greatest -- Philippe Geluck The literary descendant of Simenon and Celine Le Figaro His language is cutting, his point-of-view original and his verdict uncompromising... One of the few twentieth-century authors to win both critical acclaim and great popularity Solidarite Militaire France's most popular post-war author L'Express