Murderous Mistral: A Provence Mystery

Capitaine Roger Blanc was a little too good in his anticorruption investigations and has been banished from Paris to the South of France. His marriage can't stand the strain, and he finds himself alone in a small Provençal village, living in a 200-year-old hovel. He's teamed with Lieutenant Tonon, a disgraced officer who comes in late and drinks on the job but knows the local politics. He also knows that a murder victim found shot and burned in the dump lived locally, and the two men now have a murder to solve. Even though the most judicious and politically astute action would be to close the case quickly, Blanc doesn't take shortcuts. When there's a second death, he ventures into dangerous territory, aware of the possibility that his actions could destroy his career. Rademacher, short-listed for the Crime Writers' Association International Dagger Award (for The Murderer in Ruins), has written a carefully plotted police procedural that vividly captures the landscape and scents of Provence while introducing Blanc and a small group of colleagues.