Zwesche s’Elsàss ùn Bretagne, leijt nùmme Frànkrich. Between Alsace and Brittany, there is only the rest of France. We like them here, our Bretons. And they make it good for us.
That’s it, like that, it’s done, we tick. This Alsace-Brittany relationship works well, that’s what Margot and Jean Le Moal, the pseudonym of this couple who write with 4 hands, understood. She is Alsatian and he is Breton, Le Moal is also the name of his grandmother. Cathie Wald, their Alsatian-Breton heroine, was born while having fun with regional differences and each other’s little habits. Three volumes of the “pretzel and salted butter” series have already seen the light of day: “An investigation in Locmaria”, “A difficult pill to swallow” and the third volume, still with Calmann-Lévy: “The clothes do not make the monk”. You find Cathie there, owner of the restaurant Pretzel and salted butter, hence the name of the series, and I will not spoil the first two volumes for you, if you have not read them, Cathie Wald who hopes to enjoy the mildness of the Brittany coast at the end of summer in Locmaria. A village that exists on Belle-Île, but this one is imaginary, it is located between Quimper and Concarneau. It is counting without the arrival of its ex-husband…
The latter indeed arrives at the head of a most controversial real estate project: now he wants to buy the ruins of the Benedictine abbey to make it a residence for billionaires! Tempers flare, a committee is created to block the sale, and as a bonus, it sings… and the leader of the opponents is found dead near the coveted ruins. Everything accuses the ex-husband of Cathie the Alsatian. However, even if it is a muzzle of the worst kind, she does not manage to imagine it as a murderer. She therefore puts her grudges aside and, with the help of Yann, the journalist secretly in love with her, for whom the region holds no secrets, begins his investigation. Once again, the happy fifty-year-old finds herself at the heart of events. Coincidence? Nothing is less certain… This novel is available in all bookstores at the price of 14 € 90.
Link to publisher’s website.