Summertime All the Cats Are Bored

Starred review from May 20, 2013
Exquisite Gallic ennui wafts through France-3 TV news anchorman Georget’s first novel, but it doesn’t prevent his appealing hero, national police detective Gilles Sebag, from ferreting out the twisted motives of an apparent serial murderer believed to prey on female Dutch tourists in Perpignan, a bewitching Catalan city rife with history and local color. A few years earlier, Sebag dashed his own career hopes by choosing a half-time parental leave; now, fatigued by the “sad reality” of being a cop, he faces the approach of empty-nest-hood, the possibility that the wife he loves is unfaithful, and the one-upmanship of a smooth young officer from Paris. Sebag, a marathoner as well as a cop who finds Kleenex more useful than revolvers, can’t get used to breaking his suspects into confession. His patient unraveling of both this tortuous case and his own malaise produces a crime novel très formidable.

July 1, 2013
After two decades of marriage, Gilles Sebag, a police detective in Perpignan on the French Mediterranean shore, is more in love than ever with his beautiful wife, Claire, and he's devoted to his teenage son and daughter. But as midsummer sets in, he's filled with angst; Claire may be having an affair, and his children are rapidly outgrowing family vacations. With the kidnapping of a young Dutch tourist, Gilles must compartmentalize his worries, unravel an increasingly confounding case, and save the young woman. Georget, a newscaster for France 3 television, has put together a stylish debut novel filled with engaging characters, a vivid sense of place, and an abundance of discursive Gallic charm. Gilles is a fine protagonist: smart, conflicted, not entirely sure he's up to the challenges before him, fully French but completely at home in a place that is as much Catalan as French. Georget's Perpignan, just kilometers from Spain, sounds, tastes, and smells like paradise. Summertime, All the Cats Are Bored is a superior beach read for fans of international crime.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)