Bernard Minier

"You did nothing." Christine Steinmeyer thought the 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..." The note and the call are only the beginning. Bit by bit, her life is progressively turned upside down: someone is trying to destroy her. But who among her friends and family can hate her that much? And why? Commandant Martin Servaz is on leave in a clinic for depressed cops, haunted by the latest crime committed by his nemesis, serial killer Julian Hirtmann. Then he receives a key card to a hotel room - the room where an artist committed suicide a year earlier. He soon realises that the key opens up a most intriguing mystery. Could someone really be cruelly, consciously driving women to kill themselves? Both he and Christine are about to find out...but it may already be too late.

" Tu l'as laissée mourir... " Christine Steinmeyer croyait que la missive trouvée le soir de Noël dans sa boîte aux lettres ne lui était pas destinée. Mais l'homme qui l'interpelle en direct à la radio, dans son émission, semble persuadé du contraire... Bientôt, les incidents se multiplient, comme si quelqu'un avait pris le contrôle de son existence. Tout ce qui faisait tenir Christine debout s'effondre. Avant que l'horreur fasse irruption. Martin Servaz, de son côté, a reçu par la poste la clé d'une chambre d'hôtel. Une chambre où une artiste plasticienne s'est donné la mort un an plus tôt. Quelqu'un veut le voir reprendre du service... ce qu'il va faire, à l'insu de sa hiérarchie et de ses collègues. Et si nos proches n'étaient pas ce que nous croyons?? Et si dans l'obscurité certains secrets refusaient de mourir? Non, n'éteignez pas la lumière, ou alors préparez-vous au pire... Après les grands succès de Glacé et du Cercle, Bernard Minier revient avec un thriller sur la manipulation et l'emprise, en explorant nos cauchemars les plus intimes, nos phobies et nos obsessions...

"Un thriller nemaivăzut de la Millenium încoace." - L'Obs La Universitatea din Salamanca, un grup de studenți la Criminologie descoperă existența unui ucigaș care era sub radar de câteva decenii și care își pune în scenă victimele inspirându-se din picturile renascentiste. La Madrid, anchetatoarea Lucia Guerrero își găsește partenerul răstignit pe un Calvar și pornește pe urmele bărbatului supranumit „ucigașul cu lipici". Toți se vor confrunta cu propriul trecut, cu cele mai profunde frici și cu un adevăr mai abominabil decât toate legendele și miturile. Un festin literar pe care-l veți savura pe nerăsuflate și care are teama, misterul, teroarea și angoasa ca feluri principale. Pictura barocă este aperitivul incitant, iar mitologia - desertul opulent. "Lucia Guerrero are aceeași hotărâre de războinică obstinată ca și Lisbeth Salander a lui Stieg Larsson." - L'Obs "Legende tulburătoare, picture baroce, Metamorfozele lui Ovidiu, spirite tulburate: toate se aliniază într-o poveste complexă... și absolut terifiantă." - Le Journal de Quebec "Cititorii se vor bucura de noua călătorie oferită de acest maestru al thrillerului și cu siguranță se vor atașa de Lucia, puțina lumina dintr-o lume tenebroasă." - Le Figaro "Cred că, odată ce cititorii o vor cunoaște, o vor iubi pe Lucia la fel cum îl iubesc pe Martin Servaz. Nu se preface nici în acțiuni, nici cu emoțiile ei. Le trăiește pur și simplu, este autentică." - Bernard Minier

They find the boy by the swimming pool, dolls floating on its surface. Inside the house, his teacher lies dead. But he claims to remember nothing... June 2010. In the middle of a World Cup match, Martin Servaz receives a call from a long-lost lover. A few miles away in the town of Marsac, Classics professor Claire Diemar has been brutally murdered. As if that weren't disturbing enough, Servaz receives a cryptic e-mail indicating that Julian Hirtmann, the most twisted of all serial killers, is back…and hitting a little too close to home. With death and chaos surrounding the small university town in Southern France where he was once a student and where his daughter is now enrolled, Servaz must act quickly. With the help of detectives Irene Ziegler and Esperandieu, Servaz will have to uncover a world of betrayal and depravity to connect the dots between these gruesome murders that keep re-opening wounds from his past.

The first victim is a horse: its headless body hangs suspended from the edge of a frozen cliff. On the same day as the gruesome discovery, a young psychiatrist starts her first job at a secure asylum for the criminally insane, just a few miles away. Commandant Servaz, a Toulouse city cop, can't believe he has been called out over the death of an animal. But there is something disturbing about this crime that he cannot ignore. Then DNA from one of the most notorious inmates of the asylum is found on the corpse... and a few days later the first murder takes place. In this snowbound valley, deep in the Pyrenees, a dark story of madness and revenge is unfolding. It will take all of Servaz's skill to solve it.