by Arturo Pérez-Reverte (1996)
Read it awsome book. Exiting. In the world of rare books everything has its price. Butwhen the book is a satanic tract the currency is not money but life.
Georges Simenon
When a small time crook—a drunk, thug, pimp, and thief—is murdered on a small Mediterranean island just after he was heard boasting loudly about his policeman "friend" Maigret, Inspector Maigret is compelled to leave Paris to investigate the crime. But no one seems to have a motive for the killing. Not the old English lady and her male "secretary," nor the aging prostitute or the Dutch anarchist. But all of them have secrets they prefer to keep hidden.
Ralph McInerny
Father Dowling is used to unsolicited knocks on the rectory door, having done more than his share of counseling and assisting in delicate situations during his long career. So when Eleanor Wygant comes to visit Father Dowling he receives her graciously, though she is a stranger. As it turns out, members of her family are longtime parishioners of St. Hillary's, and it soon becomes clear that with family trouble brewing, Eleanor doesn't know where else to turn. <br><br>When she enlists Father Dowling's help in persuading her niece Jessica to scrap the tell-all family novel she is writing and concentrate on more earthly pursuits, the venerable priest has little idea how enmeshed he is about to become in the family's edgy interrelations. For in recent years, the family has had its share of melodrama, including a philandering patriarch, a son who left the priesthood to take up with an ex-nun, and an underachieving academic, and it's up to Dowling to piece together their shared history in the hopes of putting their demons-and a vicious, previously unknown murder-to rest. <br><br>In the hands of Ralph McInerny, one of mystery fiction's most beloved authors, <i>Last Things</i> is as delightful as his legions of fans have come to expect from the charming Father Dowling series.<br>
M.L. Longworth
"The fourth book in the series finds Verlaque and Bonnet on vacation on a remote island in the glittering Mediterranean Like Donna Leon and Andrea Camilleri, M. L. Longworth's books enchant mystery lovers with a taste for good food and gorgeous landscapes. In Murder on the Île Sordou, Judge Antoine Verlaque and his girlfriend, law professor Marine Bonnet, are hoping to enjoy a relaxing holiday at the Locanda Sordou, an opulent hotel that is reopening after decades, but someone has other plans. Maxime Le Bon and his wife have spent their life savings restoring the Locanda, which lies on an archipelago just off the coast of Marseille. The murder of one of the guests casts a shadow over everyone's vacation, and Verlaque and Bonnet are once again called to investigate. But things go from bad to worse when a violent storm cuts off all communication with the mainland. Will the killer strike again?"--
Olivier Barde-Cabuçon
"Une fille possédée par le diable, des villageois qui meurent chaque jour, une abbaye hantée depuis la mort de son abbé, une mystérieuse Dame blanche errant dans la forêt ... Le mal aurait-il envahi cette vallée perdue de Savoie? Et qui est cette jeune fille à la capuche rouge qui semble ne pas avoir peur du loup? Sur le chemin qui les ramène de Venise à Paris, le commissaire aux morts étranges et son père vont profiter de leur étape dans ce lieu insolite et reculé pour opposer les préceptes de la raison aux manifestations de l'inexplicable. Temporairement aveugle, le chevalier de Volnay doit s'en remettre à l'ingénue Violetta et à ses sens exacerbés par la tension ambiante. Son père, quant à lui, cache tant bien que mal son excitation sous sa robe de bure : car quoi de plus tentant, pour un moine hérétique, que de s'entretenir avec le diable lui-même? Quelque part entre 'L'exorciste', 'Le nom de la rose' et 'Le petit chaperon rouge', 'Entretien avec le diable' est sans conteste le volet le plus détonnant dans la série du commissaire aux morts étranges." [Source : 4e de couv.]