Gerald Jay

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Dangling from the steel beam, the dead body must have appeared as an eerie vision. Hanging upside down. The ankle swaying at the end of a rope.

Second in the Inspector Mazarelle Mystery series, The Hanged Man's Tale, has our Commandant Paul Mazarelle getting a promotion to join the Brigade Criminelle, which are the top 100 detectives in France. Along with his Lt. Jeannot and detail man Maurice, they are assigned to a murder case that had the body displayed hanging upside down in a tunnel and a hanged man tarot card in his jacket pocket. The victim turns out to be a former a police officer currently working as a PI. When everyone around Mazarelle wants the easy win with pinning the case on a Mafia Romani man, Mazarelle doesn't like how everything is adding up and soon begins to unravel a tangled web of far-right white supremacists, dirty cops, and newspapers paying for inside information to cases.

On the third floor the plaque on the wall announced La Brigade Criminelle with its thistle emblem and motto: “Qui s'y frotte s'y pique.” Meaning, as they say, “If you play with fire, you might get burned.”

I didn't read the first in the series but as this is more of a police procedural, focus more on the following and working the clues of the case, I didn't have a problem jumping in here. I did think the beginning felt jumbled with sentences trying to pack in numerous characters, setting the scene, and police organization names and structures. Around 30% the story evens out as the introductions are out of the way and we follow Mazarelle around. I felt like I did get to know Mazarelle, his wife dying of cancer, the numerous mentions of how big he is, and his general outlook on life, but, even as the lead, he's didn't become a character I necessarily grew to care about, the police procedural and solving the mystery are the stars of the story, so I can't say I'd be enticed to follow the character on another murder mystery.

Still, it was becoming clear---someone was messing with his investigation.
Definitely.
But who? And why?

When the story starts, it's from the pov of a character named Max, who has been radicalized and is setting up to assassinate the president of France, he fails when Mazarelle catches him and then dies when he tries to escape during transport after his arrest. The story then moves a few weeks into the future and the new murder case of the hanged man starts and you have to keep Max in the back of your mind until much later when his thread comes back into play. The threads I mentioned of far-right, dirty cops, and murder are credibly put together by Mazarelle and I liked how some of the connections were written out but I did think that the murderer/s was a bit sensational, mostly because the tone of story and Mazarelle's character was more grainy, low-key. The murderer/s story does give it a pop of lurid thriller but not sure it completely sat right in the overall tone of story. The guilty and innocent aren't obvious right away and side-characters come and go to muck about but Mazarelle shifts through it all, while surviving his own attempted murder. If you like police procedurals set in France, then the solving of a hanged man murder and all the tangled threads it brings together would be a good way to spend the afternoon.… (meer)

A body was found dangling upside down inside the tunnels of a Paris canal – not suicidal buy murdered – with the Hanged Man tarot card tucked inside his pockets!
The police inspector Paul Mazarelle was assigned to investigate this homicide. As he dug deeper into the case, he was stonewalled everywhere he went. In addition to that, the body count kept increasing, including the ambitious and prominent journalist Claire Girard who was found dead with a tarot card in her hand – the Hanged Man!
Is the Hanged Man tarot card a curse?
The talented Gerald Jay has cleverly written this suspenseful and riveting thriller THE HANGED MAN’S TALE featuring Inspector Paul Mazarelle whom I found likeable and sharp-minded. The suspense of the novel intensified as I turned the pages while I was on the edge of my seat. This is my first book by Gerald Jay and I definitely will look forward to reading his future Inspector Mazarelle Mystery!
I would like to thank Bookishfirst for this tremendously exciting opportunity to read and review the ARC of THE HANGED MAN’S TALE, which I absolutely enjoyed!… (meer)

Although I found myself more easily distracted while reading this second Mazarelle mystery than I was for the first (The Paris Directive), I still enjoyed it. Sometimes living in a country as big as the United States can give people a false sense of importance-- almost as if the rest of the world doesn't matter. Do you think the United States is the only country with right-wing extremists who hate immigrants? Think again. The Hanged Man's Tale, which takes place shortly after 9/11, makes it very clear that right-wing extremists and the plight of immigrants are problems around the world.

The two major "ingredients" of Mazarelle's team are Maurice Kalou, a Black man who is no stranger to bigotry and who has learned that doing everything by the book is the safest way to proceed, and young Jean Villepin, who's not only impulsive, but he also worships Mazarelle as only a young man who feels he's ten feet tall and bullet-proof can. Pit Mazarelle and these two against the crooked cops and right-wing extremists, and readers are treated to an often volatile mix.

Their investigation leads readers into the plight of the Roma (formerly known as gypsies) as well as into a camp for immigrants. Readers learn about ripoux (crooked cops) and les boeuf-carottes (what Americans refer to as Internal Affairs), and the fabled French Foreign Legion has a role in the proceedings, too.

As I said previously, I did find myself more easily distracted from the story in The Hanged Man's Tale, but the characters and the investigation are good, in particular the wily Mazarelle. I certainly wouldn't mind visiting him in Paris again. À bientôt, Paul!

(Review copy courtesy of the publisher and Net Galley)… (meer)

Review of Uncorrected eBook Proof

The murder of a man left hanging inside the tunnels of a canal in Paris puts police inspector Paul Mazarelle on the trail of a killer. There’s only one clue: the tarot card of the hanged man stuffed into the breast pocket of the dead man’s jacket. It doesn’t take long for a suspect to emerge, but he is an innocent man railroaded into prison in an attempt to end the investigation.

While Commandant Mazarelle investigates, journalist Claire Girard investigates the same story. Both are seeking the Tarot Card Killer. And, in the process of his investigation, the inspector discovers a ruthless syndicate of white supremacists and an unexpected cabal of corrupt police officers.

As the killer claims more victims, secrets and conspiracies threaten Commandant Mazarelle’s life. Will he find the Tarot Card Killer or will he fall victim as well?

Set in Paris in 2002, the occasionally gruesome narrative is both compelling and intriguing. The strong sense of place and the nuanced characters give depth to the telling of the tale.

As the mystery slowly unravels, readers will find themselves drawn into the story despite the nasty undercurrent of racism that is a bit off-putting but that plays an integral part in the telling of the tale.

The sometimes-gritty story takes several surprising turns, keeping readers guessing and the pages turning until the fast-paced denouement plays out to a satisfying conclusion.

Recommended.

I received a free copy of this eBook from Doubleday Books and NetGalley
#TheHangedMansTale #NetGalley… (meer)