Praise for The Double Mother
“Brainy, exciting, and humane.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Bussi multiplies the red herrings, tangles the plot strings, plays with illusions and subterfuge. He is the master of the trompe-l’œil novel.”—ELLE Magazine
“Bussi is back, with his breathless style, to give us something to chew over.”—Le Point
Praise for Michel Bussi
“Michel Bussi is one of France’s most ingenious crime writers.”—The Sunday Times on Don’t Let Go
“A work of genius befitting the masterpiece by Monet at its heart....Bussi cleverly breaks all the perceived rules of plotting in a story containing riddles within riddles.... But every loose thread is meshed neatly together in the final pages until the jaw-dropping big reveal at the end. The result is simply stunning.”—Daily Express on Black Water Lilies
“[A] dazzling, unexpected, and haunting masterpiece.”—The Daily Mail on Black Water Lilies
“Riveting! Bussi spins psychological suspense at its finest with this consuming tale of one child, two families, and the dark secrets that define us all. Clear your schedule; this book is worth it!”―Lisa Gardner, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Crash & Burn and Find Her on After the Crash
“After the Crash is a jolt to the senses and a jolt to the heart—both rollicking and labyrinthine, both wildly propulsive and yet rich with grand drama, and with a cast of characters—particularly its sumptuously powerful women—you won’t forget.”―Megan Abbott, author of You Will Know Me
“After the Crash opens with a wrenching scene that will serve as the mystery’s terrifically compelling central conceit . . . sit back and go along for the ride . . . Bussi’s tucked a lot of enjoyable—and enjoyably surprising—pieces into his puzzle.”―The Boston Globe
“This fascinating tale of intrigue and murder delves into complicated family bonds as it builds to a surprising and shocking conclusion.”—Publishers Weekly on After the Crash
“Fast-paced and action-packed, this thriller is adrenaline pumping. Bussi offers a smart, complex mystery with plenty of plausible twists and surprises . . . An engrossing story that’s almost impossible to put down.”—Shelf Awareness on After the Crash
“A well-constructed literary thriller with a strong sense of place and deep understanding of human nature.”—Kirkus Reviews on Time is a Killer
“Bathed in the perfumes and flavors of Corsica […] Time is a Killer will be read with bated breath until the final twist!”—Le Magazine des Livres
“Michel Bussi’s psychological crime novels are beyond masterful.”—Le Figaro on Time is a Killer
2021-06-02
A daring robbery in Normandy gets tangled with a mystery of a much more unlikely kind.
Malone Moulin is only 3 1/2, but he tells everyone who’ll listen that his mother, Amanda Moulin, isn’t really his mother. One of the people who listens is school psychologist Vasily Dragonman, who brings the clues Malone keeps saying he hears from Gouti, his beloved stuffed agouti, to the attention of Capt. Marianne Augresse of the Le Havre police. The story is nonsense, of course—Amanda and Dimitri Moulin have extensive documentation going back to a birth certificate proving that Malone is their son—and at any rate Marianne is already preoccupied with the high-stakes robberies of four exclusive boutiques evidently planned down to the smallest detail by four thieves working together. Two of the presumed robbers, local lowlifes Cyril and Ilona Lukowik, soon turn up dead, and a third, Timo Soler, has gone to ground somewhere with a police officer’s bullet in his chest. But who is the fourth? Marianne suspects wanted killer Alexis Zerda, but her officers can’t find him. As the search widens and the trail grows bloodier, Marianne, whose downtime from her job is fueled by her addiction to the interactive website www.want-to-kill.com, finds her questions multiplying until at length she realizes that the two cases she’s been struggling to juggle are one case after all. Bussi piles on the twists with a sovereign indifference to plausibility, though savvy readers will see many of them coming. What they won’t see in advance is the nuanced compassion for almost everyone involved in the mind-boggling fraud at the heart of the mystery.
Brainy, exciting, and humane.