The Murdered House

French writer Magnan's darkly compelling gothic suspense thriller is a story of obsession. S raphin Monge, a titan-sized, muscle-bound military veteran, returns to his hometown in the French Alps at the end of WWI. S raphin, an orphan who was raised by nuns, finds employment as a road-digger and wins the hearts of the town's two beauties, Rose S pulcre and Marie Dormeur. He also learns the long-hidden truth about his disturbing past: his entire family, including his parents, his grandfather and two older brothers, were brutally murdered at their home, La Burliere, in the autumn of 1896. S raphin, a three-week-old infant, was the sole survivor of the bloodbath. Although three Herzegovinian wastrels were convicted of the crime and executed, S raphin comes to doubt their culpability, suspecting that the true murderers have yet to be brought to justice. Tormented by the succubus-like ghost of his mother, he begins to tear down La Burliere, desperate to obliterate his violent legacy as well. In the process, however, S raphin unearths documents that hint at the guilt of three prominent local citizens: Gaspard Dupin, a nouveau riche captain of industry, and Didion S pulcre and Celestat Dormeur, the fathers of Rose and Marie. S raphin plots a bloody revenge, but quickly becomes aware that someone is beating him to the punch: Dupin and S pulcre are viciously slain, and S raphin realizes he's being shadowed. Magnan staggers his revelations deftly, generating maximum suspense and a consistent sequence of discoveries. His characters may be thinly conceived at times, but the novel remains chillingly effective, blending brooding, artful, descriptive passages--the cloth curtain obscuring a doorway is ""impenetrable as an oracle's mouth""--with nimble, twisty plotting and a metaphor-laden, Brothers Grimm-like allegorical resonance. (Aug.) FYI: The Murdered House was first published in 1984 in France under the title La Maison Assassin e and is currently being filmed by the director Georges Lautner.