Death in Brittany

Starred review from April 6, 2015
Francophiles and art lovers will welcome Bannalec’s good old-fashioned detective story set in Brittany. When a prominent hotel owner, Pierre-Louis Pennec, is found stabbed to death in his restaurant in the village of Pont-Aven, Commissaire Georges Dupin, a former Paris policeman exiled to what he considers a backwater, investigates. Why would someone kill a terminally-ill nonagenarian? Pennec and his forebears amassed an impressive collection of art by painters who have frequented Pont-Aven since the end of the 19th century. Could one painting in the collection be a previously unknown Gauguin? The members of Pennac’s small, acrimonious family and the local art society are anxious to find out. Like Simenon’s Maigret, Dupin is a loner, who relies on thorough data and objective analysis to make his deductions. Bannelec excels at plotting and pacing, as well as vivid descriptions of the Finistère countryside. Readers will look forward to seeing more Dupin books from this talented author.

May 1, 2015
Commissaire Georges Dupin scratches his head over the death of a 91-year-old Breton hotelier. It's been two years and seven months since Dupin was "relocated" to a remote corner of Brittany. Even though locals still consider him a Parisian, he feels at home in Concarneau, where he sits each morning at the bar of the Amiral sipping coffee and gazing at the sea. One morning his peace is shattered by a call from Labat, the more annoying of his two inspectors, who informs him that Pierre-Louis Pennec, owner of the Central Hotel, has been found stabbed to death. Grumbling at the intrusion-he hasn't even had time to buy his lottery ticket-Dupin hurries to Pont-Aven, an even more idyllic spot than Concarneau because it's where the wooded river valley joins the rocky Breton coast. There, Dupin becomes more puzzled than put out. Who would kill an elderly man whose chief occupation was sipping the local lambig, an apple brandy even better than calvados, at his own bar at the end of each evening? As he interviews Pennec's employees-wily Madame Lajoux, steady Madame Mendu, overwhelmed Madame Galez-Dupin's confusion deepens. Even Pennec's family, his son, Loic, and his half brother, Andre, sheds no light on the case. Gradually Dupin becomes convinced that the solution lies in the Central itself, which was home to the impressionist artists who worked at Pont-Aven. Solving this case isn't paint-by-numbers: it takes ingenuity, determination, and a little help from Marie Morgane Cassel, a comely art historian from Brest. Dupin's debut, published first in Germany and then in Britain, holds the promise of more pleasant puzzlers from the scenic north of France.

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Starred review from May 1, 2015
What Inspector Maigret did for Paris, and, more recently, what Chief of Police Bruno does for the Dordogne, Commissaire Dupin does for Brittany. This mystery, with a setting to die for, was first published in Germany in 2012, where it was a best-seller. In Dupin's first case, he is an appreciative newcomer to Brittany, having been relocated from Paris to the seaside town of Concarneau two years previously. Dupin conducts most of his work from his favorite cafe right on the North Atlantic waterfront, L'Amiral, an actual cafe, famous for its views and a brawl involving the painter Gauguin. Dupin is called to investigate a murder in a nearby town, Pont-Aven, once home to a clutch of post-Impressionist painters, most notably Gauguin. The legendary owner of the town's most prominent hotel has been found dead in his restaurant. The mystery deepens when someone breaks back into the crime scene. Dupin is fascinating to watchhe's both cranky and enthusiastic. If it weren't for his cell phone and a few light references to forensics, Dupin would seem to be a detective who is very pre-CSI. The star of the mystery, though, is Brittany. Bannalec feeds the reader with intriguing bits of history (for example, Bretons are descended from the Celts, who fled Britain during the Anglo-Saxon invasions) and culture, along with bracing glimpses of centuries-old stone buildings, river banks, and the sea.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)