Antoine, a widowed postman, goes off the rails when his seven-year-old daughter, the only person in his life who really matters to him, goes missing. The police are doing their best, but they haven't come up with any solid leads. Fortunately, like just about every honest citizen of Marseille who has ever graced the printed page, Antoine has a close friend from primary school days who is now a notorious gangster (and another who is now a celebrated prostitute and the unofficial mascot of OM ...!).

I was looking forward to this book, but it didn't really live up to my expectations. Probably more my fault than the author's: for one thing, I've got Jean-Claude Izzo fresh in my memory, a writer Frégni clearly also admires very much, but wisely doesn't try to imitate. So I'm looking for things in the book which aren't there and don't actually need to be there, like Izzo's political engagement and his wide interest in Marseille as multi-culti melting-pot. This is a straightforward revenge thriller, and that's the second problem I have with it: it's a book driven by the central character's need to find whoever's responsible for the pain he's suffering and do something unspeakably violent to them. There are plenty of sound literary precedents for that, but it isn't something I'm looking for in a crime novel. In fact, any novel in which the characters have a technical discussion about different types of guns before going on a senseless killing spree is liable to put me off, even more than a novel in which the make and model of every car that appears is described in detail.

Maybe I need to try one of Frégni's other books. ( )