The Daily Mail: "Perfect deckchair entertainment."

Inspector Gilles Sebag of the Perpignan police is worrying about the onset of middle age, the state of his marriage, and three baffling local crimes.

The battered body of a young Dutch girl is found on a beach. A taxi driver who is known to be a bit of a lad suddenly disappears.

Another Dutch girl, Ingrid Raven, has also disappeared. We know that she is being kept, bound and gagged, in a dark cellar; can Gilles work out how to find her before it’s too late?

The plot is intricate and tense, but the deepest pleasure of reading this fantastic French ticking-clock thriller lies in the author’s glorious evocation of his native Perpignan, with its herb-scented air and hammering heat, so vivid that you can almost taste it.

Perfect deckchair entertainment.

--Kate Saunders