A French Country Murder

Rating:
Summary: An Unforgettable Tale of Mystery, Madness and Romance
Review: Peter Steiner may be familiar to you, though not as a writer. He is a cartoonist; his work appears in such diverse publications as The New Yorker and The Washington Times. Knowledge of his work in his heretofore chosen profession will not prepare you for A FRENCH COUNTRY MURDER, his first novel. This is an altogether serious work, combining elements of Agatha Christie and Robert Ludlum while, at the same time, striking off into different territory.

A FRENCH COUNTRY MURDER is, more than anything else, a study of Louis Morgon, an American expatriate living quietly in rural France and a willing slave to the quiet routine he has constructed for himself. That routine is shattered with the discovery of a dead body at Morgon's literal doorstep. We learn that Morgon, a former U.S. State Department liaison with the CIA, has a past that he refers to as "the sordid world" and that has abruptly intruded into his present. Morgon almost immediately knows the meaning, if not the circumstances, that led to the placing of the body at his front door. Steiner, during the course of A FRENCH COUNTRY MURDER, frequently moves between Morgon's present and past, revealing how Morgon, an up-and-comer in the State Department, came to lose his career, his marriage and family, and live in a small French village with his paints, his casual friendship with the village gendarme and his affair with his next door neighbor. All of these things will be changed with A FRENCH COUNTRY MURDER as Morgon, who has been driven quietly but irrevocably mad by life, sets about to trace the murder back to its source in order to prevent his own demise.

Morgon is not the only unforgettable character Steiner creates herein, however. Solesme Lefourier, Morgon's neighbor and paramour, is possessed of a strength that is only hinted at through most of this fine novel but that is demonstrated profusely by the telling of three events: one occurring in the past and the other two in the present. The past event, a telling of how Lefourier dealt with the marriage of a suitor who had jilted her, is alone worth reading A FRENCH COUNTRY MURDER. Though it takes little more than a couple of paragraphs to relate, it has such a ring of truth to it that it infuses the rest of the novel with a reality to which most works of fiction only aspire.

A FRENCH COUNTRY MURDER is an unforgettable tale of mystery, madness and romance from an unlikely source. It can only be hoped that this novel will receive the attention, respect and success it so deserves in order to encourage Steiner to tread further into the waters of fiction. Very highly recommended.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

Rating:
Summary: The Best Thriller of the Year
Review: Peter Steiner's new book is a tightly written, suspenseful political and psycholgical thriller that keeps one "hooked" to the end. Peter's concise writing style and great ability to select exactly the right word to express detail give one a greater appreciation of his gift as a writer. It rises above other books of the genre because of the fully developed characters and Peter's wonderful ability to convey his love for France and the French countryside. Additionally, it is informative about French history, customs, and culture. I highly recommend anyone's sitting down with this captivating book for a sophisticated thrill and vicarious journey to France.

Rating:
Summary: The Best Thriller of the Year
Review: Peter Steiner's new book is a tightly written, suspenseful political and psycholgical thriller that keeps one "hooked" to the end. Peter's concise writing style and great ability to select exactly the right word to express detail give one a greater appreciation of his gift as a writer. It rises above other books of the genre because of the fully developed characters and Peter's wonderful ability to convey his love for France and the French countryside. Additionally, it is informative about French history, customs, and culture. I highly recommend anyone's sitting down with this captivating book for a sophisticated thrill and vicarious journey to France.

Rating:
Summary: Tale of murder in France
Review: REVIEWED BY LORNA WILLIAMS ....
There's a certain je ne sais quoi about a brutal murder in a peaceful country setting, a reminder perhaps that our lives, no matter how tranquil, are never perfectly safe. Consider the case of Louis Morgon, former CIA-State Department liaison, whose day usually starts with coffee, baguette and marmalade on the terrace of his home in rural France. Beyond is a sublime view of fields of sunflowers under a sky of "that particular blue which endures right down to the horizon, a color so intense and deep that you can feel the blackness of outer space behind it."
It sounds like heaven on earth and it is . . . until the morning that Morgon on the way to his sunny terrace finds a corpse, its throat neatly slit from ear to ear, on his doorstep. He telephones the one-man police force, his friend Jean Renard, who sets in motion an investigation that reaches all the way back to "the sordid world," Morgon's shorthand phrase for the messy life he left behind in Washington, D.C.
He has no wish to be reminded of that time of deception and treachery or the back stabbing that ended his career at the CIA. Deciding that living - and eating - well is the best revenge, he's bought a house in a small French town, taken up painting and cooking, planted a vegetable garden, acquired a French mistress. With the arrival of the corpse the sixtyish expatriate senses that his idyllic way of life is in danger, possibly his very existence.
So begins "A French Country Murder," by Peter Steiner, the slyly funny cartoonist whose work appears in the New Yorker, the Weekly Standard and this newspaper. Like his protagonist, Mr. Steiner has a house in France and paints, posing a second (minor) mystery: How much of the Morgon character is Steiner?
Early on Morgon guesses the identity of the murderer - and so do we. Consequently the mystery is not about whodunnit, or even why, but rather why this murder at this time? That question is most satisfyingly answered over the next 200 or so pages in which Louis returns to Washington, meets again the ex-wife he hasn't seen for years and his two estranged children, revisits the State Department (where he has a Kafka-esque confrontation with twitchy security guards), contemplates the possibility of his own death, and devises a risky plan to avoid it.
A key witness is kidnapped, and the dramatic denouement at Charles DeGaulle Airport is a cliff-hanger guaranteed to please cloak-and-dagger and mystery buffs alike.
This novel - Steiner's first - is not your typical mystery or espionage thriller, although it contains elements of both genres. The complex personal relationships tied to Louis -who is intelligent, self-centered, flawed - are as important as the plot. We learn about his failed career and marriage in a series of flashbacks in which Mr. Steiner by no means absolves his main character of blame. Louis is reading "Anna Karenina" for the first time so it seems natural that Tolstoy's well-known opening about happy and unhappy families triggers his first plunge into the past.
New insights into his former profession accompany his memories. Although he had been ambitious as a young man, "Louis now gauged the depth of his obliviousness, his staggering naivete, by the fact that he had preferred working at CIA headquarters in Langley, to working at the State Department in Foggy Bottom." After his betrayal he questions the effect of a life of spying on the personality. "Despite the secretive and duplicitous nature of their business, he had found the people at CIA headquarters possessed of a peculiar and eccentric innocence . . .They all seemed to believe that they could make deceit and intrigue their livelihood and still lead normal lives."
The other characters are a varied lot, from gendarme Renard, a small-town Inspector Maigret, to Solesme Lefourier, Louis' outspoken, down-to-earth mistress, to a powerful Washington bureaucrat, a future American Secretary of State (which one does Steiner have in mind I wonder?) who Louis once found in bed with his wife.
Oddly it's not the cuckolded husband, but the adulterous lover who is the humiliated party and who bears a grudge against Louis for years - a reversal that is not entirely convincing. True, that future State Department big shot is pudgy and unattractive, but readers may wonder why he doesn't simply rejoice in his good fortune at overcoming these handicaps (as any sensible Frenchman would) instead of being filled with self-loathing. After all, what's a little flab if power is the ultimate aphrodisiac?
This incident and the decades-long resentment it inspires are instructive of the differences between French and American attitudes to sex, as is a second bedroom scene, notable for truth telling, in Louis' house in France.
"Do all Americans have such peculiar notions about marriage and love?" Solesme asks Louis after he wonders out loud where their affair might be heading. "You seem to imagine that every passion must eventually become public, that it must be officially sanctioned. In fact everything always seems to have to lead somewhere for you. What a busy and purposeful people you are. This has already taken us where it is taking us. The fact that it might not be going anywhere else, does that frighten you?" (It does, but only a little and not for long.)
In these parlous times I hope that it isn't doing the author a disservice to point out that his love affair with France and all things French is everywhere evident. In an early flashback Louis retraces his long hike from Paris to Spain on his first visit to France, allowing Mr. Steiner to include lyrical descriptions of the French countryside and a brief history of 'la musette,' the nostalgia-driven dance music played on an accordion that for many foreigners still symbolizes France.
Not least, Mr. Steiner's characters are constantly serving up mouthwateringly good French meals (rabbit cooked in red wine with garlic and shallots; roast pork with prunes and spinach; coquilles St. Jacques with roasted potatoes) that made me want to stop reading and start cooking. Or go back to France.

Rating:
Summary: David vs. Goliath type thriller
Review: Sixtyish American expatriate Louis Morgan lives in countrified Saint Leon, France estranged from the government he once toiled for and the family he never had time for because of his top secret State Department work. Louis follows the same routines every morning carrying his breakfast out to the terrace only this day he is greeted by the corpse of a black man. He calls Gendarme Renard who immediately begins an investigation that Louis knows is hopeless because his past has returned.

Years ago in the DC area, Louis saw his wife having sex with his mentor, Undersecretary of State Huge Bowes. Louis humiliated Hugh before walking out on his spouse and his former mentor. Now thirty years later Louis believes Hugh, the Secretary of State, has left a calling card to remind his former protégé that he never forgot the debasement. Louis knows to survive he must return to Washington to gather information and challenge one of the most powerful and highly regarded people in the world.

This inviting thriller is a David vs. Goliath tale with the odds greater than Douglas-Tyson. The story line enables the audience to see behind the façade of power into the motives of the key players including an in the pocket media. Though the flashbacks are critical to explain the present scenarios of the two combatants, they also disrupt the flow of the prime plot. Still Peter Steiner furnishes an intriguing story that will bring the popular cartoonist many thriller fans.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: A Promising First Work
Review: This is an enjoyable read. The opening paragraph demonstrates the author's fluid, natural style: the description of Louis' morning breakfast ritual is skillfully understated, leaving ample room for the reader to evoke the proper mood. This same quality permeates much of the book.

Plot and details are very good; Peter Steiner entertains and educates with a deft hand. The pace of the story is excellent: not once did I find myself becoming either impatient or overwhelmed by the unfolding of events.

Yet, this mystery suffers in a few areas, most notably with regard to motive. One cannot understand the antagonist's desire to chart such a reckless course with regard to Louis; there's simply no reason not to let sleeping dogs lie. Instead, one is forced to attribute the motive to rather implausable psychological factors.

Also, there's a bit too much narrative. Action would have been preferable. The narrative strives to convince the reader of the characters' underlying psychological states. Unfortunately, without sufficient action on the part of the characters to back this up, the narrative only serves to reveal the author's own psychology. I found this suprising, since Steiner otherwise does a very good job of keeping himself out of the way of his characters.

It's likely that this author will soon mature into an excellent mystery writer. I plan to follow his work with great interest.