Favourite Discoveries 2013 (2)

Today's instalment of favourite discoveries of 2013 comes from Norman Price who blogs and reviews at Crime Scraps as well as at Euro Crime.

Norman Price's Favourite Discovery of 2013

My discovery of the year was Summertime, All The Cats Are Bored by Philippe Georget translated by Steve Rendall. This was a excellent debut novel with an intriguing title - a direct translation of the original French. One of the reasons I enjoyed it was that most French crime novels feature Parisian cops who may occasionally venture out into the provinces, while Summertime is located in Perpignan, a city situated on the Mediterranean coast with a cosmopolitan dual Catalan/French culture.

The intuitive detective Gilles Sebag, the main protagonist, is married to the beautiful Claire and they have two teenage children, Severine and Leo. It is all very French with Gilles unsure of Claire, and their relationship almost as important to the plot as the hunt for the perpetrator of crimes against young Dutch women.

I can't imagine Madame Maigret swimming naked with Jules, like Claire and Gilles in Summertime, but this is Perpignan not Paris and that was another simpler time.

I am looking forward to more novels about Gilles, his lovely wife Claire, his boss Castello and his colleague Jacques Molina.

Read Norman's full review of Summertime, All The Cats are Bored over at Crime Scraps.