Murder on Brittany Shores

Islands. The second novel in Jean-Luc Bannalec’s Commissaire Dupin series is titled, Murder on Brittany Shores. Dupin has been outsider enough in his transition from Paris to Breton, but the latest case takes him even further outside his comfort zone: the Glénan Islands, about ten miles off the Brittany coast. Bannalec describes this magical place with enough detail that a reader might smell and taste the sea and its bounty. In this area, time stands still, connecting past and present. When three bodies wash up on shore, Dupin arrives at what he thinks is the result of an accident. Readers ride the waves with Dupin as he unravels a complicated and satisfying case. I especially enjoyed this perspective from page 226: “Bretons had, Dupin found, a special relationship with time, with the past, even the far-distant past. Which above all meant: it didn’t exist for Bretons, the past. It had not passed. Nothing was past. Everything that there had been was also present and would stay that way forever. This didn’t reduce the significance of the present at all, on the contrary: it made it even greater.” Fans of crime fiction are those most likely to enjoy this novel and this series. Rating: Four-star (I like it) Click here to purchase Murder on Brittany Shores from amazon.com.