A case of matricide

Burnet's third metafictional crime story featuring anxious detective George Gorski (after The Accident on the A35) serves up a tantalizing blend of psychological thrills and small-town life in Saint-Louis, France. It opens with a dizzying conceit: the text purports to be an autobiographical novel by Raymond Brunet, in which Gorski features as that author's stand-in, and Burnet has translated Brunet's novel from the French. From there, Gorski takes on a series of unsettling cases, beginning with that of bedridden Madame Dumaynn, who claims her 40-something live-in son, Robert, plans to poison her. Robert blames his mother's suspicion on alleged dementia when he's interviewed by Gorski, but a revelation that he killed their dog lends credence to her concern, causing Gorski to be plagued by the fear that if Robert kills her, Gorski will be culpable due to his failure to act. Burnet then zooms out for a broader depiction of the town as Gorski investigates a suspicious death at a concrete plant, where he learns the "bigwig" victim bribed local officials. The parallels feel a bit strained in Burnet's kaleidoscopic set of author-doppelgängers, which Burnet returns to in an afterword, but along the way, the novel delivers a convincing depiction of bureaucratic and provincial rot. Fans of the series will be pleased. Agent: Isobel Dixon, Blake Friedmann Literary. (Nov.)

Burnet concludes his trilogy, which began withThe Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau (2017) and continued withThe Accident on the A35 (2018), with a third and final case for Georges Gorski, lackadaisical chief inspector of France's Saint-Louis police. Pretending once more to be translating a novel by one Raymond Brunet (get it?), Burnet takes his time introducing the usual suspects of Saint-Louis and their customary haunts before having Gorski respond to a call from Madame Duymann, who's convinced that her son, an insurance clerk turned novelist, is planning to kill her. Robert Duymann dismisses her fears as delusional and makes a point of introducing every subsequent meeting with Gorski with the announcement that he hasn't killed his mother yet. While unwary readers innocently wait for further developments, Gorski, whose wife, Céline, has recently left him, commences a mutual flirtation with Emma Beck, who runs the flower shop on the first floor of his aging mother's apartment building; feels constantly guilty that he's bungling the non-affair at every step; and flashes back repeatedly to an episode in which he, at the age of 8, impulsively but deliberately crushed his family's mustard spoon and then covered up the misdeed. There will eventually be a matricide, and the identities of both the mother and her killer will surprise many readers. But in a poker-faced afterword pointing out many clever touches you may have missed, it's hard to disagree with Burnet's remark that, whatever his strengths and attractions, "Brunet is incapable of keeping his mind on the narrative business at hand." Like meta? Here's meta. Resonant plot or characters worth caring about, not so much. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.