French reporter turned author Grangé (The Stone Council; Blood-Red Rivers
) produces another grisly, Paris-set suspense novel, one that should help build his stateside audience. Chocolate shop worker Anna Heymes, 31, suffers horrifying nightmares and periods of extreme confusion ("memory gaps") so great that she's barely able to recognize her own husband, Laurent. Psychologists are stumped until Anna discovers scars on her scalp and is convinced that her face has been reconstructed—but by whom? and for what reason? Meanwhile, silver-haired, divorced top cop Paul Nerteaux investigates the murder of three female Turkish illegal immigrants, each of their bodies hideously mutilated beyond recognition. To aid in the bizarre case, Paul resurrects retired, ultra-shady "father of all cops" Jean-Louis Schiffer. Using heavy-handed tactics, Paul and Jean-Louis scour the Turkish quarter and infiltrate the Grey Wolves, a deadly right-wing political organization bent on finding the now unrecognizable Anna (aka Sema Gokalp, presurgery) since she's the sole witness to a kidnapping in a Parisian sweatshop. Unbeknownst to her, Anna was also an imprisoned "laboratory rat" for the Morpho project, a radical psychic conditioning experiment, but her questionable past is soon exposed. Grangé's gloomy, gray-hued Paris makes an apt backdrop for this gruesome thriller. The complicated scientific scenario shouldn't dissuade readers from enjoying this murky morsel. (Jan. 7)
