January Publications

In Daniel Pennac's delightfully quirky Monsieur Malaussène (translated from the French by Ian Monk), the final book in his Belleville quintet (The Scapegoat, etc.), his hapless hero, Benjamin Malaussène, once again plays the fall guy. Charged with 21 murders, Ben must rely on his extended family and the colorful residents of Paris's largely Arab Belleville neighborhood to clear his name. Pennac effortlessly weaves the crime-solving in between vignettes of French cinema history, regional wines, religious art and other incidentals sure to tickle every Francophile's fancy. (Harvill [Trafalgar Sq., dist.] $17.95 paper 432p ISBN 1-84343-020-7)

Five Star rolls out two novels by American mystery pros: Little Girl Lost, about a New York PI's attempt to track down the killer of his high-school sweetheart turned stripper, by Richard Aleas, the pseudonym of a Shamus nominee whose fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine($25.95 225p ISBN 1-59414-111-8); and Edgar-nominee Lee Goldberg's The Walk, a thriller that occurs in the aftermath of an earthquake that devastates Los Angeles ($25.95 225p -110-X).