I read one of this author's considerably more cosier offerings - Death in the Truffle Wood last year, this is a book I should have read a couple of weeks ago for a Murder & Mayhem discussion but I got distracted by the latest from Peter Corris. So I'm madly trying to catch up.
From the Blurb:
One dark night in the winter of 1896, in remote upper Provence, a family is brutally massacred. Only a three-week-old baby miraculously survives. In 1920, the orphan, Seraphin Monge, finally returns home from the war to pursue the truth. Haunted by the image of his mother's dying moments, he turns on the house that has seen such misery, destroying it stone by stone. As the walls crumble, the killers' identities are laid bare and his anger turns to vengeance. But for every murder Seraphin plots, another hand silently executes it in his place.
Opening Lines:
Monge was on his guard, it was one of those nights when you know you have to be on the alert in these parts if you want to avoid unpleasant surprises. It was a night when you hold your breath, when anything can happen.
One dark night in the winter of 1896, in remote upper Provence, a family is brutally massacred. Only a three-week-old baby miraculously survives. In 1920, the orphan, Seraphin Monge, finally returns home from the war to pursue the truth. Haunted by the image of his mother's dying moments, he turns on the house that has seen such misery, destroying it stone by stone. As the walls crumble, the killers' identities are laid bare and his anger turns to vengeance. But for every murder Seraphin plots, another hand silently executes it in his place.