Garnier, Pascal: The A26.

A huge motorway is being constructed through Picardy setting the scene for this short, taut novel.

Yolande has not left her house since being shamed for having a German soldier lover during WW2

and relies on her brother, Bernard, to provide groceries etc.   He has taken indefinite sick leave fom 

his job with SNCF as he has been given a short time to live.   Whether this changes him or awakens

a dormant streak is uncertain but he kills a girl he has given a lift and then others.   The road works

provide a suitable place to hide the bodies.    The style is reminiscent of Simenon but blacker in tone

than I remember Simenon being.   There is humour but this, too, is black and the end of the story is

well arranged and somewhat unexpected.   

Hawkins, Paula: The Girl on the Train

Recently made into a major filmstarring Emily Blunt (who, even made up, is far to attractive to fit
Rachel as she is described), the book is rather confusing as it tells its story from the viewpoint of three women connected by their lover for the same man who was married to Rachel, is now married
to Anna while having an affair with Megan.   The latter is dead at the time of the main story which
is, in effect, a search for her killer.   Rachel is a drunk who cannot come to terms with her ex-husband's remarriage and she is suspect because she cannot remember the events of the night Megan
disappeared though she was in the immediate area.   She becomes involved, to an extent, with Scott,
Magen's husband, who is understandably the main suspect.   What might have been a reasonable
straighforward thriller is complicated by not only the change of narrator (though most of this is
Rachel) but also by the change of time over a period of months.   This confusion is cleverly done
but unduly complicated and I did start to find it annoying.   However, the somewhat unexpected
denouement made up for the annoyance caused.