A Case of Matricide

Burnet’s third metafictional crime story featuring anxious detective George Gorski (after The Accident on the A35) serves up a tantalizing blend of psychological thrills and small-town life in Saint-Louis, France. It opens with a dizzying conceit: the text purports to be an autobiographical novel by Raymond Brunet, in which Gorski features as that author’s stand-in, and Burnet has translated Brunet’s novel from the French. From there, Gorski takes on a series of unsettling cases, beginning with that of bedridden Madame Dumaynn, who claims her 40-something live-in son, Robert, plans to poison her. Robert blames his mother’s suspicion on alleged dementia when he’s interviewed by Gorski, but a revelation that he killed their dog lends credence to her concern, causing Gorski to be plagued by the fear that if Robert kills her, Gorski will be culpable due to his failure to act. Burnet then zooms out for a broader depiction of the town as Gorski investigates a suspicious death at a concrete plant, where he learns the “bigwig” victim bribed local officials. The parallels feel a bit strained in Burnet’s kaleidoscopic set of author-doppelgängers, which Burnet returns to in an afterword, but along the way, the novel delivers a convincing depiction of bureaucratic and provincial rot. Fans of the series will be pleased. Agent: Isobel Dixon, Blake Friedmann Literary. (Nov.)