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Commandant Martin Servaz
What if the people closest to us are not what they seem? What happens when someone takes control of your life and your relationships? And what is hiding in the darkness? Don't turn out the lights ... or you won't see who's coming after you.
"You did nothing."
hristine Steinmeyer thought the anonymous suicide note she found in her mailbox on Christmas Eve wasn't meant for her. But the man calling in to her radio show seems convinced otherwise.
"You let her die..."
That's only the beginning. Bit by bit, her life is turned upside down. But who among her friends and family hates her enough to want to destroy her? And why? It's as if someone has taken over her life, and everything holding it together starts to crumble. Soon all that is left is an unimaginable nightmare.
Martin Servaz is on leave in a clinic for depressed cops, haunted by his childhood sweetheart Marianne's kidnapping by his nemesis, the psychopath Julian Hirtmann. One day, he receives a key card to a hotel room in the mail - the room where an artist committed suicide a year earlier. Someone wants him to get back to work, which he's more than ready to do, despite his mandatory sick leave. Servaz soon uncovers evidence of a truly terrifying crime. Could someone really be cruelly, consciously hounding women to death?
"Starred Review. Minier sustains a high degree of tension throughout, while making his characters' reactions to extreme stress plausible." - Publishers Weekly
"It is a brilliant aria da capo, set appropriately to an operatic soundtrack, with a surprising and thoroughly satisfying conclusion. Perfect for fans of Martin Walker's Bruno Courrèges series." - Booklist
"[Minier] builds suspense with tantalizing teaspoons of menace and a narrative crafted with believable immediacy. Both protagonists confront their nemeses with a determination that should hook readers and keep them hooked." - Kirkus
"Packed with layers of intrigue and unrelenting suspense, this dark and twisty Gallic procedural will keep fans of international crime fiction and admirers of Minier's earlier mysteries glued to their armchairs." - Library Journal
This information about Don't Turn Out the Lights was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Bernard Minier grew up in the foothills of the French Pyrenees. He had a career as a customs official before publishing his first novel, The Frozen Dead, in 2011. The novel has been translated into a dozen languages and has garnered critical acclaim as well as several literary prizes in France. Minier lives in the Essonne, south of Paris.
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