Innocence

The murder of a Resistance hero leads a young boy to discover a meaning to life - and love

Magnan's evocation of sun-baked landscapes and small-town Provençal life... is superb

Pierre Magnan was born in Manosque in 1922 and has rarely left his native Provence. In 1943, during the Occupation, he fought with the Resistance in the Isère, and in 1946 he published his first novel, L'Aube Insolite. During his lifetime he published over twenty novels, four of which have so far been translated into English. He died in May 2012, at the age of 89.

June 1945. The war is over. Early one morning in the hills of Provence, Pierrot, a fifteen-year-old boy out hunting for snails, stumbles across the dead body of Capitaine Patrocle, a celebrated hero of the Resistance. He has been murdered. In the dead man's wallet Pierrot discovers a letter which he conceals under his beret. Its contents provide the key to the dramatic events that lie at the heart of this haunting and unforgettable story of illicit passions and lead, subsequently, to the boy's association with the tragic and beautiful Madame Henry and to his introduction to the mysteries of love.

The Messengers of Death

A wonderfully atmospheric thriller set, like all Magnan's work, in Provence, and featuring his engaging detective, Commissaire Laviolette.

A unique and disturbing summer read... Pierre Magnan is a complete original

The author has developed a cunning sleight-of-hand in thrusting a key clue under the reader's nose, yet disguising it. Veteran reader of crime fiction though I am, I didn't guess correctly. But the atmosphere is most to be relished. The lavishly complicated plot unfolds among spine-tingling descriptions of remote Provence

From real to surreal...This quirky story of avarice and vengeance in rural France unfolds with all the charm of a slightly puzzling art house french movie

Crime fiction for those with a soul and a dark sense of humour

Magnan chronicles the hidden passions seething below the apparently idyllic surface of rural life [in a style] closer to Flaubert than Midsomer Murders

Magnan is a master storyteller... unmissable

In a sleepy Provencal village, retired postman Emile Pencenat is busy digging his own grave when he spots an unstamped letter in the cemetery's disused postbox, addressed to a Madamoiselle Champourcieux. He dutifully posts the letter. When the body of this same Madamoiselle is later discovered - pinned to her piano with an ancient bayonet - Commissaire Laviolette is coaxed out of retirement to solve one of the most bizarre crimes imaginable.

Death In The Truffle Wood

'Crime fiction for those with a soul and a dark sense of humour' - Independent on Sunday

The atmosphere is as earthy as the truffles from which Banon makes a living, though Magnan cuts the richness with humour

Magnan's stylish narrative is enlivened by touches of sometimes grim humour

Entertaining and intriguing. A canny exercise in black humour and suspense

'Witty and melancholy by turns, if the plot of this eccentric tale of greed and witchcraft doesn't have your mouth watering, the loving descriptions of French food will

Un-put-down-able, especially for holiday reading in that mysterious rented villa in Provence

Jane Jakeman reviewing The Murdered House

In Banon, a small, peaceful village in upper Provence, the local community's principal source of income is the cultivation of truffles. Outsiders rarely venture to this remote region, but a small group of society's drop-outs have chosen to set up home on the outskirts of the village, and trouble ensues. 
 
When one of them is found dead in the freezer of a local hotel, and when a further five bodies are discovered drained of blood in a family vault in the cemetery, it takes all Commissaire Laviolette's considerable resources to unravel crimes that have been committed in a climate of age-old superstition and secret animosity. 
 
Not since Jean Giono has any writer been able to capture the authentic flavour, spirit and traditions of Provence.

Pierre Magnan

This is an extraordinary novel by an extraordinary writer- his writing is hard, lucid, muscular, his characters of mythic proportions

Once again Magnan captures beautifully the feel of Provence, with its sunbaked landscapes, its mysteries and its edge of danger. Superb

The mysterious, enigmatic Seraphin Monge, having avenged the horrific murder of his family, has vanished as abruptly as he appeared. His brief sojourn in the village of his birth has touched the lives of the villagers, and he is much mourned by the women who claim to have been in love with him. But is Seraphin dead or alive? If so, how to explain the ghostly visions and declared sightings of him, the powerfully vivid memories or the miraculous events for which he is seemingly responsible? 
 
Dead, if that is what he is, Seraphin appears to be infinitely more present that he was in his lifetime. 
 
Ranging over half a century, this is a self-contained sequel to the author's prize-winning novel, The Murdered House.

Pierre Magnan

Praise for Beyond The Grave

This is an extraordinary novel by an extraordinary writer- his writing is hard, lucid, muscular, his characters of mythic proportions

Once again Magnan captures beautifully the feel of Provence, with its sunbaked landscapes, its mysteries and its edge of danger. Superb

The master of Provencal Gothic

This is an extraordinary novel by an extraordinary writer- his writing is hard, lucid, muscular, his characters of mythic proportions

Once again Magnan captures beautifully the feel of Provence, with its sunbaked landscapes, its mysteries and its edge of danger. Superb

The master of Provencal Gothic

This is an extraordinary novel by an extraordinary writer- his writing is hard, lucid, muscular, his characters of mythic proportions

Once again Magnan captures beautifully the feel of Provence, with its sunbaked landscapes, its mysteries and its edge of danger. Superb

The master of Provencal Gothic

Books by Pierre Magnan

Series by Pierre Magnan

Vintage Crime

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