A brisk and breezy English translation ... Binet does an excellent job of cycling through the various letter-writers without ever allowing the reader to get lost. But his most brilliant feat is incorporating historical facts and attributes into the framework of his mystery.
Has all the elements of a classic mystery, put together by a knowing hand that is at once respectful of the genre and dexterous enough to be playful ... We need devices like the whodunnit to provide a vanishing point on which to centre the canvas, so that the messy beauty of history can play on the peripheral vision.
Binet’s yarn has plenty of entertaining moments as the would-be detectives rule out suspects and hone in on their quarry. With a plot as thick as gesso, Binet’s latest takes inventive twists to arrive at a satisfying conclusion.
