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Summary
Summary
Commissaire Dupin is back i n The Fleur de Sel Murders , this Brittany mystery from international bestselling author Jean-Luc Bannalec.
The old salt farmers have always said that the violet scent of the Fleur de Sel at harvest time on the salt marshes of the Guérande Peninsula has been known to cause hallucinations. Commissaire Dupin also starts to believe this when he's attacked out of the blue in the salt works.
He had actually been looking forward to escaping his endless paperwork and taking a trip to the "white country" between the raging Atlantic Ocean and idyllic rivers. But when he starts snooping around mysterious barrels on behalf of Lilou Breval, a journalist friend, he finds himself unexpectedly under attack. The offender remains a mystery, and a short time later, Breval disappears without a trace. It is thanks to his secretary Nolwenn and the ambition of the prefect that Dupin is assigned to the case. But he won't be working alone because Sylvaine Rose is the investigator responsible for the department--and she lives up to her name...
What's going on in the salt works? Dupin and Rose search feverishly for clues and stumble upon false alibis, massive conflicts of interest, personal feuds--and ancient Breton legends.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The tightly regulated and lucrative salt trade is the spark for the intriguing plot of Bannalec's third Brittany mystery to be translated into English (after 2016's Murder on Brittany Shores). Commissaire Georges Dupin, who's been deskbound for weeks, welcomes the request of Lilou Breval, a journalist who's helped the police in the past, to take a look around a salt pond and a nearby hut where she saw "something very fishy." When an unknown shooter hits Dupin in the shoulder at the scene, the case becomes personal. But this is not his jurisdiction, and Dupin must work with Sylvaine Rose, the local commissaire. He's desperate to speak with Breval, but she has disappeared, so Dupin and Rose start talking to those involved in the highly competitive salt trade without her. When a body is found, the inquiry turns into a murder investigation. Multiple red herrings draw readers off the scent. Well-drawn, complex characters, the lovingly described countryside, and the area's culinary bounty make this a winner. Some fans will be inspired to take their next vacation in Brittany. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Commissaire Georges Dupin (Murder on Brittany Shores, 2016, etc.) strays off his patch to probe a murder in the salt marshes of Gurande.The White Land is almost impossible to describe. Its light, filtered by clouds and reflected upward by the shallow pools of the salt gardens, its scent of seawater, iodine, and "a curious fragrance of violets" that fills the air after the harvest of the most delicate sea salt, fleur de sel, combine to form a landscape that even sturdy, sensible folk like Dupin's secretary, Nolwenn, swear is the work of the fairies. But it's not fairies who shoot at Dupin when he finds himself on Maxime Daeron's salt farm; it's someone who wants to stop him from investigating a report from his friend Lilou Breval, a journalist with Ouest-France, of suspicious blue barrels out on the marshes. Dupin won't be stopped, not by a painful flesh wound that sends him briefly to the hospital, not by the death of Lilou, whose body is found in Gulf of Morbihan, not even by the realization that the salt flats are in the Department Loire-Atlantique and therefore out of his jurisdiction. Instead, he teams up with charming, determined Commissaire Sylvaine Rose of the Commissariat de Police Gurande. Dupin's delicate negotiation of his necessary but challenging relationship with Rose, his careful but unobtrusive detailing of the mechanics of salt farming, and his growing affection for the landscape of Brittany are just some of the joys of his latest outing.Bannelec's Breton adventures are some of the best French local color going, with a deft blend of puzzle, personality, and description of the indescribable. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
The title refers to the highly prized sea salt (the flower of the salt) harvested in Brittany. In this, the fourth mystery starring Commissaire Georges Dupin, an unwilling transplant from Paris who has grown to love Brittany, one of Dupin's informants, a journalist friend, Lilou Breval, urges Dupin to inspect a particular part of the salt marshes for barrels with suspicious contents. Then Dupin suffers a gunshot wound, and Breval's body is found later at low tide. Dupin's investigation hinges on uncovering what the journalist was working on: the existence of a salt war between powerful rivals. This is an exciting, well-plotted mystery, but it suffers somewhat from a clumsy translation from the French that is often stilted and repetitive, as in the statement that Dupin couldn't identify the local birds since his ornithological knowledge was lacking. Even so, Bannalec's mystery is a worthy addition to contemporary mysteries set in France, like those set in the Dordogne (by Martin Walker) and Aix-en-Provence (by M. L. Longworth). A fascinating glimpse into salt harvesting, with exciting action.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2018 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
Taryn's target, a rival senator named Porter Smalls, hires Lucas to keep him alive, but as an extreme right-winger, his enemies are legion. The designated hit man, Jack Parrish, has his own adversaries, including a colleague he shafted when they both worked for the C.I.A. and an Army colonel who watched him steal military equipment and sell it to outside contractors. Sadly, for readers hoping someone will succeed in bumping off obnoxious Senator Smalls, it's his lover who dies in a suspicious auto accident. The political angle adds more bile to Taryn's plan to crush Lucas, who's determined to unmask her as the villain she is. But the senator herself acknowledges Lucas's adversarial strength. "He is intelligent and he is dangerous," she admits. "When I say dangerous, I mean a killer." She's right about that. Sandford has been working on Lucas for more than two dozen books, and by now Lucas can handle just about anything, including a group of bad-apple mercenaries. He's a hero for these perilous times, a man's man who can take on three big brutes at once and isn't afraid to wear pink. "I HAVE SKILLS that are dormant, rusty, but not forgotten," acknowledges the hired assassin who goes by the name Columbus in Derek Haas's thrillers. THE WAY I DIE (Pegasus Crime, $25.95) finds this enigmatic protagonist in northern Michigan, on Mackinac Island, preparing to eradicate a predatory schoolteacher before the man can pounce on the teenage girls in his care. But in a disturbingly funny plot turn, another pupil takes the initiative and heads off this human raptor. "She has the disposition of some of the greatest killers I know - razor-sharp wit buried inside a forgettable package," Columbus (who's calling himself Copeland these days) observes of short, chubby, nearsighted Meghan, whom he might consider training in his own profession. That memorable scene introduces a plot that takes this self-exiled assassin to the Pacific Northwest to protect a software inventor named Matthew Boone from being eliminated by persons or governments unknown. The face-recognition program Boone designed sounds fascinating, but there's no time to linger on the particulars when Columbus is stocking up on the latest weaponry and getting ready to face a killer as cool as he is. MURDER IN THE RANKS of high society provides heady entertainment for the servants who toil in obscurity in A DEATH OF NO IMPORTANCE (Minotaur, $24.99), a lively upstairs/downstairs mystery by Mariah Fredericks set in New York City in 1910. Jane Prescott, a smart and sensible lady's maid in service to the nouveau riche Benchley family, has a front-row seat for the mischief that ensues when pretty, vapid Charlotte Benchley rises above her station and becomes romantically entwined with a rich nitwit ne'er-dowell, Robert Norris Newsome Jr. When Norrie is murdered on the night their engagement is to be announced, Charlotte becomes a suspect and only Jane seems inclined to clear the silly girl's good name. The murder mystery becomes entangled, at times awkwardly, with larger social issues like unionism, anarchism and the women's suffrage movement. But the scenes that work best feature oblivious upper-crust swells, dancing while the victims of a terrible mine disaster lie moldering in their graves. Not even the most disciplined author can write a novel set in France without salivating over the local cuisine. In Sorcha McDonagh's translation of the pseudonymous Jean-Luc Bannalec's enchanting THE FLEUR DE SEL MURDERS (Minotaur, $24.99), Commissaire Georges Dupin ponders the disappearance of a crusading investigative reporter named Lilou Breval while contemplating a meal of pan-fried Breton sole, a specialty, "along with langoustines, prawns, scallops, delicious sea bass, and squid," of the port of Le Croisic. In the nearby salt-producing region, an elaborate system of canals and pools yields a crop that's been called White Gold. But fierce global competition has taken its toll, and Dupin suspects the pools are currently being used for something more sinister than processing salt. Ancient legends impart a pleasing frisson to his sleuthing ("I had warned you about walking through the salt marshes at night or early in the morning"), and he learns that this mineral isn't as ordinary as it seems. MARILYN STASIO has covered crime fiction for the Book Review since 1988. Her column appears twice a month.