It’s almost like an anniversary, the collection of Rhenish Investigations published by Verger Éditeur celebrates its 50th book. Quality regional thrillers, in pocket, at 10€, and which has the luxury of a small typographical overhaul, it’s quite discreet, but it’s classy, for this fiftieth novel. It is Louis-Donatien Perin who benefits from this round figure. After his classical studies in Saint-Louis, then university in Strasbourg, he became a teacher of modern literature and Italian language.
From Italy to the underworld, you will see, there is a link. Louis-Donatien is multi-card: in 1963 he co-founded the blues group Les Jaguars. In 1976, he founded the theater group “la Compagnie du Lys”. Plays, thrillers, poems, short stories, novels… He wrote more than twenty books, including the first investigations of the captain. No, not Marleau, but Captain Catherine Molinot, whom he takes up here in “the smiles of the devil”. The city of Saint-Louis and the region of the three borders is experiencing a series of seemingly ritual murders. We regularly find, in the early morning, the body of a man staged for all to see, always murdered in the same way, according to an implacable method.
For Captain Catherine Molinot, the case is particularly difficult. Everything, in appearance, connects these deaths, but they did not know each other and nothing allows us to update a credible track. Nothing except one detail: these men seem to have had particularly violent morals with women. Justice will be very difficult to pass. Always €10, at your favorite bookstore.
The author will also be present this Saturday and Sunday at the Saint-Louis Book Forum to present his book and offer signings.
The Wikipedia page on Louis-Donatien Perin.
The book on the publisher’s website, Le Verger.