You Who Know

Freeling, an acknowledged master, packs even more provocation and punch than usual into his 32nd novel, in which former French cop Henri Castang delves into the power of sex and the nature of love, generously lacing his account with literary and political allusions. Now working for the European Commmunity, Castang sets out to solve the shotgun murder in Brussels of his Irish friend, Eamonn Hickey, an EC bureaucrat. An unproductive interview in Dublin with Hickey's father leads to Hampshire where Hickey's estranged wife reveals that her mate had a hidden life in which he lusted after typists and kitchen maids. Next, Castang is in the Italian Alps, where a female British agent suggests that Hickey was IRA. She, too, is killed with a high-powered rifle and soon, in Lake Como, Castang must take extreme action to save himself from an attacking scuba diver. Drawing a bead on a smuggling ring that deals in antiques, sex and drugs, Castang, aided by his insightful wife, Vera, closes in on a mafia capo. An unusual last scene aboard a Lake Lugano touring boat finds Castang confronting the crime kingpin with his essential weakness: like Hickey, the man is incapable of love. As ever, Freeling writes with heart and unfailing intelligence. (July)