Extraordinary People (Enzo Files Series #1)

by Peter May

Overview

In the first book of the Enzo Files, ex forensic scientist Enzo Macleod makes a daring wager and attempts to solve the ten-year-old case of a vanished man.

An old mystery.
As midnight strikes, a man desperately seeking sanctuary flees into a church. The next day, his sudden disappearance will make him famous throughout France.

A new science.
Forensic expert Enzo Macleod takes a wager to solve the seven most notorious French murders, armed with modern technology and a total disregard for the justice system.

A fresh trail.
Deep in the catacombs below the city, he unearths dark clues deliberately set - and as he draws closer to the killer, discovers that he is to be the next victim.

LOVED EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE? Read book 2 in the series, THE CRITIC
LOVE PETER MAY? Order his new thriller, A WINTER GRAVE

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781782068853
Publisher:	Quercus Publishing
Publication date:	05/30/2013
Series:	Enzo Files Series , #1
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
File size:	774 KB

About the Author

Peter May was born and raised in Scotland. He was an award-winning journalist at the age of twenty-one and a published novelist at twenty-six. When his first book was adapted as a major drama series for the BBC, he quit journalism and during the high-octane fifteen years that followed, became one of Scotland's most successful television dramatists. He created three prime-time drama series, presided over two of the highest-rated serials in his homeland as script editor and producer, and worked on more than 1,000 episodes of ratings-topping drama before deciding to leave television to return to his first love, writing novels.

In 2021, he was awarded the CWA Dagger in the Library Award. He has also won several literature awards in France, received the USA's Barry Award for The Blackhouse, the first in his internationally bestselling Lewis Trilogy; and in 2014 was awarded the ITV Specsavers Crime Thriller Book Club Best Read of the Year award for Entry Island. Peter now lives in South-West France with his wife, writer Janice Hally.

Editorial Reviews

In the first breezy installment of a projected new series from Scottish author May (The Firemaker), Enzo Macleod, a Scottish forensic biologist who lives in France, bets that he can solve an old case with new science. Lonely and bored with his teaching career, the widowed biologist takes on the unsolved case of Jacques Gaillard, a public intellectual with a controversial political career who disappeared without a trace 10 years earlier. With the help of his adored daughter, Sophie, and new flame, Charlotte, a beautiful psychologist trained in criminal profiling, Enzo traverses France and Germany to follow a series of clues that lead to scattered body parts and Gaillard's dangerous killers. Despite some unlikely coincidences, this travelogue-cum-murder mystery makes for a fun puzzle. (Nov.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Forensic scientist Enzo Macleod, who 20 years ago left his wife, daughter, and career in Scotland for a young Frenchwoman, now lives in Cahors with his French daughter and teaches biology. On a bet, he decides to solve the ten-year-old disappearance of a high-ranking French diplomat. He follows the trail of clues, which have been buried with various pieces of the diplomat who is indeed dead. Along the way, Enzo assembles an unusual team of researchers including his daughter, her boyfriend, and a student from Enzo's biology class. May, known for his award-winning thriller series set in China, has written a thoroughly engaging puzzle mystery that may appeal to patrons who enjoy group crime solving la Christopher Fowler's Peculiar Crimes Unit (Ten Second Staircase) or Caleb Carr's The Alienist. May lives in France. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ 7/06.] Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

A forensic scientist traces the mysterious disappearance of a French television personality. An oblique prologue hints at a dark crime in 1996 Paris. In the present, Scottish biologist Enzo Macleod, who's worked for law enforcement in his native land, comes to the City of Lights with two goals. His first ends in failure when his estranged daughter Kirsty, now settled in Paris, slams the door in his face because she still hasn't forgiven him for leaving her mother. Enzo meets with journalist Roger Raffin, who specializes in unsolved crimes, concerning his second goal: unraveling the mystery surrounding Jacques Gaillard, a high-profile TV pundit who vanished ten years ago. Enzo feels an inexplicably strong bond with the eclectic Gaillard, whose passions were intellectual rather than carnal. The trail unfolds as a series of mini-mysteries, most with strong puzzle elements. Enzo confirms his hunch, through a DNA test of blood traces found on the altar of a church he frequented, that Gaillard was murdered. Then it's time to reconstruct Gaillard's skull from discovered fragments. As the case becomes more complicated and dangerous, Enzo's elder daughter Sophie and Raffin's estranged wife Charlotte, with whom Enzo becomes involved, get caught in the cross hairs. Raffin plays Watson to Enzo's Holmes as they piece the tantalizing clues together. May (The Firemaker, 2005) provides abundant local color and writes with measured authority. The results are as engaging as they are cerebral.

Kirkus Reviews