Joncour, Serge: UV

A rich family, father, mother, two daughters, a son-in-law and two children are on holiday at the family house on a small island when a handsome stranger arrives. He is the friend from schooldays of the son of the family whose arrival is expected at any time to set off fireworks on July 14th. The stranger, Boris, rapidly insinuates hiself into the family circle with both daughters flirting with him, the uunmarried one possibly going further, thre mother all but treating him as the absent son as does the father. The only person not taken with him is the son-in-law who sees him as an usurper. Joncour builds up the hold the stranger has and the
underlying tension in spare laconic language until the climax when the two men go to the mainland to collect the fireworks with Boris deliberately tormenting and belittling the son-in-law. In the mainland town, however, the son appears and he and the son-in-law return to the island alone saying that Boris had other plans. Later that evening, he turns up. The scene shifts to the mainland where the local ironmonger who had been storing the fireworks hears an explosion from the island which he thinks is the fireworks going off early though there is no sign of them - and that was the only explosion of the evenng....This leavesthe reader to decide what the explosion was using the earlier exposition of the internal family relationships, both good and bad, to provide clues. At the beginning I could see a certain similarity to the Ripley novels of Patricia Highsmith but the book turned out to be more about the effect an intruder can have on a family even though the book is a prize-winning noir. Not certain if I would read more of this author.

McDermid, Val: The Torment of Others

Following her rape in a previous book (one I have yet to read) DCI Carol Jordan takes
a new post in Bradfield after a protracted leave. She is rejoined by Tony Hill who has given up his academic post to return to practising psychology at a nearby hospital. The story tells of the search for a killer of prostitutes which mirror those of a previously convicted killer of whose guilt there is no doubt. But this is no copycat killer! At the same time Jordan's team are also investigating a pair of child abductions which they have been told to re-examine. The two cases reveal the different personalities and desires of the members of the task force, not all of them positive. One of them agrees to act as a decoy to draw out the prostitute killer and she is caught but kept alive. Dr Hill's input provides, as one might expect valuable leads in both cases with the ultimate resolution of both but not before a number of twists. The book is well up to McDermid's high standards and provides an example of one of the more chilling psycopaths I have met in crime literature.

Vargas, Fred: The Chalk Circle Man

This is the first Adamsberg novel but not the first to be published here. Blue chalk circles have been appearing in various parts of central Paris, each with an apparently irrelevant object in them - a stone, a cigarette packet, a dead bird, etc. This intrigues Adamsberg who is convinced that there will soon be a body in the circle. The early chapters flesh out his rather odd way of looking at things and also introduces the Parisian police in his squad who quickly adapt to his unorthodox methods. As in the later books, there is a collection of eccentrics - a celebrated lady deep-sea diver who prefers fish to people but spends her time on land striking up conversations with strangers, one of whom is a blind man whose sense of small provides Adamsberg with a clue, and an elderly rather unattractive housekeeper who is continually replying to lonely heart ads. The oceanographer has seen the chalk circle drawer and provides a description which eventually leads to his exposure but he seems only to have drawn the circles and claims someone else is corruptly using them. Further complications arise both with the case and with Adamsberg's personal life before the final chapter closes. I might not have read more of Fred Vargas' novels had I read this one first. As it is, the first I read hardly involved Adamsberg until the final chapters and the other I have read indicate, I consider, that Vargas took a while to get into her stride so I am glad I have read this one now and not earlier

Grimwood, Jon Courtenay: End of the World Blues

Yet another excellent book from a master story teller. From a teenage romance which was blighted to a married life in Tokyo which is cut short the hero, Kit, is suspected of murder, is involved dangerously with Yakusa bosses - an affair with the wife of one is not exactly healthy - and agrees to look for his former love who may or may not be dead. He collects a young girl,
or does she collect him, who follows him to London where she acquires a boy friend. The present day element in the book is a thriller as his search involves undercover police and local crime lords. The girl is not of this world but from the distant future where a different tale unfolds. Very well done and not at all confusing.

Bataille, Georges: Story of the Eye

As with the previous posting, computer problems (probably mine rather than the equipment) mean this should have appeared
last year! Apparently, this is considered a major surrealist text which came out in four versions, this translation being based on the 1928 original. The short book is a loosely linked series of pornographic episodes with a strong element of sadism and scatological detail. No great development of character leaves the main characters anything but rounded with their personalities relating only to the sexual acts in which they are involved - many of them more than a little unlikely.
The Pengui edition I have includes essays by Sontag and Barthes.