The Messengers of Death

Description

A wonderfully atmospheric thriller set, like all Magnan's work, in Provence, and featuring his engaging detective, Commissaire Laviolette. In a sleepy Provencal village, retired postman Emile Pencenat is busy digging his own grave when he spots an unstamped letter in the cemetery's disused postbox, addressed to a Madamoiselle Champourcieux. He dutifully posts the letter. When the body of this same Madamoiselle is later discovered - pinned to her piano with an ancient bayonet - Commissaire Laviolette is coaxed out of retirement to solve one of the most bizarre crimes imaginable.

Pierre Magnan was born in Manosque in 1922 and has rarely left his native Provence. In 1943, during the Occupation, he fought with the Resistance in the Is re, and in 1946 he published his first novel, L'Aube Insolite. During his lifetime he published over twenty novels, four of which have so far been translated into English. He died in May 2012, at the age of 89.

A unique and disturbing summer read... Pierre Magnan is a complete original * Sunday Times * The author has developed a cunning sleight-of-hand in thrusting a key clue under the reader's nose, yet disguising it. Veteran reader of crime fiction though I am, I didn't guess correctly. But the atmosphere is most to be relished. The lavishly complicated plot unfolds among spine-tingling descriptions of remote Provence -- Jane Jakeman * Independent * From real to surreal...This quirky story of avarice and vengeance in rural France unfolds with all the charm of a slightly puzzling art house french movie -- Carla McKay * Daily Mail * Crime fiction for those with a soul and a dark sense of humour * Independent on Sunday * Magnan chronicles the hidden passions seething below the apparently idyllic surface of rural life [in a style] closer to Flaubert than Midsomer Murders * Daily Telegraph *