Nicolas Freeling

In France, a police detective hunts for an elusive killer in this novel by an award-winning author who "writes like no one else" (Los Angeles Times). In the tiny French town of Soulay, Inspector Henri Castang is dealing with a brutal robbery, a drugged teenager, and the sad delusions of a nervous old lady. But when a violent death suggests a mysterious connection to recent events in Paris Castang must untangle a mix of spiteful small-town gossip...

A French detective looks into a public figure's murder-and discovers some private secrets-in a mystery by an author who is "a joy to read" (TheTimes Literary Supplement). When a local official is gunned down in the street, it looks like a cold-blooded political assassination. But as Inspector Henri Castang investigates-and questions the victim's colleagues and family-it seems the motive might have been closer to home. The mystery only becomes...

From an Edgar Award–winning British crime novelist, this unsettling homicide investigation features the unorthodox French detective Henri Castang. On a sultry summer night in a French provincial city, Insp. Henri Castang is summoned from his office at the Police Judiciaire to the site of a triple murder. The killer? A husband who came home unexpectedly to discover his wife and daughter in bed with another man. A crime of passion? Perhaps. Except...

"An acknowledged master . . . writes with heart and unfailing intelligence" in this meditative Inspector Castang mystery about sexual obsession and love (Publishers Weekly). When Inspector Henri Castang is asked to investigate the death of a colleague and friend, an Irishman whose erratic behavior raises questions about his involvement in the I.R.A., Castang travels through Europe in search of answers. What the detective discovers is a very different...

From an Edgar award winner, this thriller about a physicist forced to make an A-bomb is "a splendid account of the excesses of science and bureaucracy" (The New York Times).   An American physicist working in Hamburg, Jim Hawkins is on his way home from his job at a German nuclear institute when he is rammed off the road and abducted by terrorists. Drugged and taken to a secret location, he wakes to find himself being held hostage alongside his...

"That artful master of the international policier . . . delivers another one of his uncommonly intelligent procedurals with Inspector Henri Castang." -The New York Times When Police Commissaire Henri Castang is summoned to investigate a missing hotelier, he's not alarmed at the young widow's disappearance. Until a routine inquiry on the hotel's last guest reveals him to be a Jewish artist and concentration camp survivor who never checked in to...

From an Edgar award–winning author, a psychological thriller about a crime victim who turns criminal when he goes on the run with his assailants. Middle-aged writer Walter Forestier's ordinary existence takes a turn towards violence when he is viciously attacked at home, robbed, and left bound for his wife to find him. Of course, she wants to call the police, but Walter refuses. Even more mysterious, when the burglars strike again, Walter will...

From an Edgar award–winning British crime novelist, an Inspector Castang thriller that "has it all-politics, sex, metaphysics" (The New York Times). It's a quiet night at the Police Judiciare in Detective Castang's provincial corner of France when a prominent politician stumbles in, claiming he was in a car accident he can barely recall, with a passenger who is his mistress-and is very likely dead. But when the unorthodox inspector's astute investigation...

The ninth Inspector Castang murder mystery is "a heady pleasure" in which "learning the identity of the miscreant is only one of the delights" (Publishers Weekly). Recently promoted to Commissaire of a small province in northeastern France, Inspector Castang must tread lightly when the wife of a prominent wine merchant is murdered. Especially since the victim's sister is very well-connected in political circles. Castang has his work cut out for...

From an Edgar award–winner, a shrewd French detective investigates murder in "a meditative, dark, ironic installment in the unconventional Castang series" (Kirkus Reviews). Two violent murders one after another in a provincial district in France is more than enough to agitate the astute mind of Inspector Henri Castang. Especially since the first was so gruesome-he suspects the corpse has been cannibalized. The second killing leads him to a teenage...