From Publishers Weekly
Le Carre and Deighton fans will welcome New Yorker cartoonist Steiner's engaging, if enigmatic, first novel, which uses the traditional trappings of the thriller to explore a man's late-life changes. After his unjust dismissal from the CIA, where he was an up-and-coming Middle East policy expert, Louis Morgon finds refuge in rural France. Decades later, someone deposits a corpse with a slit throat on his doorstep. While little mystery surrounds the identity of the prime conspirator, the story, which uses flashbacks and flash-forwards, avoids pat resolutions and does full justice to the complexities of interpersonal relationships. The scenes set in small-town France capture the atmosphere and pace of life there wonderfully.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"A wonderful novel - keen-eyed, circumspect, patient and wise. In crafting his alluring debut, Mr. Steiner shows us how those who lust for power can never be satisfied and that a small village in rural France isn't all that far from Washington, D.C. when a killer comes to call. "A French Country Murder" est superbe - as a study of a man whose choices haunt him and as a quietly thrilling mystery."
- Jim Fusilli, author of Closing Time and A Well-Known Secret
"A French Country Murder is a rare phenomenon, a beautiful crime novel. When I realized what it was, I began to read more slowly to make it last."
- Thomas Perry, Edgar-award-winning author of The Butcher's Boy
"Le Carre and Deighton fans will welcome New Yorker cartoonist Steiner's engaging . . . first novel"
- Publishers Weekly
"Early reviewers have likened Steiner's debut to John le Carre and Len Deighton, but to me the writer he resembles most is Nicolas Freeling, who in recent years has written mysteries . . . about older men in peril because of their past. Morgon is a fascinating character, recognizable in all his vanity and paranoia. And Steiner, who lives part of the year in France, sketches such a rich life for his tiny town that he makes you want to forgive Jacques Chirac all his sins and get on the next plane."
- Chicago Tribune
"Steiner's studied understatement--the unmysterious tale unfolds largely in retrospective summary--renders the stuff of international intrigue into a coolly telegraphic portrait of betrayal."
- Kirkus Reviews
"A French Country Murder is a complex, enigmatic mystery whose appeal lies chiefly in debut novelist Peter Steiner's compelling narrative and delightful descriptions of the people and places he encounters in France."
- Nashville Tennessean
"A beautifully rendered portrait of a peaceful retirement doomed by the past."
- Contra Costa Times
"A captivating murder mystery . . . . for anyone who enjoys good writing. Let's hope Peter Steiner puts his drawing pens down long enough to writer more."
- Tampa Tribune & Times
"Simple and straightfoward, in stunning contrast to the plot."
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"Intriguing"
- Harriet Klausner
"Inviting"
- Library Journal
