Publisher's Weekly Review
At the start of Bannalec's sluggish seventh Brittany mystery featuring Commissaire Georges Dupin (after 2021's The Granite Coast Murders), Dupin's indefatigable assistant, Nolwenn, aims to immerse her irascible, coffee-swilling boss in the lure and lore of a local forest famed for its connection to King Arthur. But the departmental outing tumbles off course before it can begin, as Dupin, responding to a Parisian colleague's request for some off-the-books help on a case, attempts to interview Fabien Cadiou, a professor attending an Arthurian conference in the area, and instead discovers his corpse. Immediately afterward, another Arthurian expert is stabbed to death, and Dupin begins grilling a circle of academics with intertwined volatile personal and professional histories. The subsequent investigation plods, even as the bodies pile up. At the end, Dupin is offered a chance to return to Paris, a goal he's always wanted since being exiled to Brittany after riling his big-city superiors. This prospect offers more excitement than the mystery that preceded it. Bannalec has done better. Agent: Iris Brandt, Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch (Germany). (Apr.)
Kirkus Review
An office retreat goes horribly wrong. It's been two years since the team at the Commissariat de Police Concarneau has gone on an outing together. So when Nolwenn, Commissaire Georges Dupin's redoubtable assistant, bids to turn an unavoidable trip to the Forêt de Brocéliande into a group venture, even the taciturn Inspector Kadeg seems pleased. Riwal, Dupin's other inspector, is downright jubilant. Brocéliande is famous throughout Europe as the seat of Celtic-Breton folklore, including the tales of King Arthur and his Round Table, and he relishes the chance to introduce Paris-born Dupin to the Church of the Holy Grail, Merlin's Steps, and Lake Lancelot. And Dupin's far more eager to explore Brocéliande than to carry out the errand pressed on him by his old Paris comrade Jean Odinot. After all, wasn't it the Paris police who supported his expulsion to Brittany, as far from Paris as he could be sent, after he publicly insulted the mayor? But when Dupin arrives at the Parc de l'Imagination Illimitée, run by Odinot's friend Dr. Fabien Cadiou, and finds the academic lying dead on the floor, what was supposed to be a pleasure trip turns into one of the most vexing cases of the Commissaire's career. Cadiou is just the first of a band of quarrelsome King Arthur academics to breathe his last, and as the body count rises, Dupin has reason to fear that it may come to include even members of his team. Another tense puzzle from Bannalec, with the Breton landscape once more the star of the show. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
The famous Brocéliande Forest in Brittany, stomping ground for Merlin, Morgan le Fay, Lancelot, and other characters and sites in Arthurian legend, forms the backdrop for this seventh Commissaire Georges Dupin mystery. Dupin, happily exiled from the Paris Police to the Atlantic seacoast town of Concarneau, takes a sort of learning expedition/bonding trip with his coworkers to the inland forest, and no sooner does the group arrive at a large manor house than Dupin stumbles over a noted Arthurian expert's newly murdered body. That same day, another Arthurian scholar is found stabbed to death in the forest. Dupin (who is anathema to the head of the Paris Police) is, in a rather absurd plot point, appointed to head the investigation. The backstory to the murders and attempted murders centers on the conflict among the Arthurian scholars, gathered for a conference, over whether King Arthur was legendary or actual, given new evidence unearthed at archaeological digs in the UK and France. The plot is not entirely believable, but the fascinating background carries the day.
Library Journal Review
Commissaire Dupin and his team should be having fun on their summer field trip to the forest of Broceliande, supposedly the last of a Breton fairy kingdom. But of course they find a dead body, and more corpses stack up along with questions for the scientists managing the forest: what do they think about the most recent archaeological digs, do they object to turning part of the forest into an amusement park, and why aren't they talking? With a 30,000-copy first printing.
