The future is on its way to Picardy with the construction of a huge motorway. But nearby is a house where nothing has changed since 1945. Traumatised by events that year, Yolande hasn't left her home since. And life has not been kinder to Bernard, her brother, who is now in the final months of a terminal illness.Realizing that he has so little time left, Bernard's gloom suddenly lifts. With no longer anything to lose, he becomes reckless - and murderous...

Ennui, dislocation, alienation, estrangement - these are the colours on Garnier's palette. And somehow, darkly, he makes them almost funny. I could compare him with JG Ballard or with Michel Houellebecq or Daniel Davies. He's been compared with Georges Simenon and Cormac McCarthy and with Patricia Highsmith. But really, his books are out there on their own, short, jagged and exhilarating, unexpected slaps around the face that make you laugh with surprise while you spin around to see who di...

Written over a 15-year period from the mid '90s, Garnier's short novels weave a profound and darkly comic tapestry of human experience. Volume 3 includes The Eskimo Solution, which combines the story of a struggling writer with excerpts of the crime novel he's writing, which will spill over into his own life; Low Heights, in which a cantankerous retiree falls for his nurse and finds himself confronted with a man claiming to be his long-lost son ... but th...

Written over a 15-year period from the mid '90s, Garnier's short novels feature a recurring set of themes, characters and settings, and reading them side by side allows the author's profound and darkly comic tapestry of human experience to be fully appreciated. Volume 1 includes The A26, in which a new Picardy motorway brings modernity close to a flat in which a brother and sister live together, haunted by terminal illness and the events of 1945; How's the Pai...

Booker-winner John Banville has long heralded Pascal Garnier as 'the true heir to Simenon'. Now, with a dozen of Garnier's noirs available in English, Banville introduces a new edition of one of Garnier's masterworks as part of a collection of contemporary and classic jewels of French literature.How's the Pain? sees ageing 'pest exterminator' Simon take on one last job on the Riveira, aided by young chauffeur Bernard. As the unlikely pair set off on their journey, Bernard soon fin...

Nature's a funny old thing, it does whatever it pleases.Given the choice, Martial would not have moved to Les Conviviales. But Odette loved the idea of a brand-new retirement village in the south of France. So that was that. At first it feels like a terrible mistake: they're the only residents and it's raining non-stop. Then three neighbours arrive, the sun comes out, and life becomes far more interesting and agreeable. Until, that is, some travellers set up camp just outside their gated c...

Fabien and Sylvie had both known their marriage was no longer working. And yet when Sylvie is involved in a fatal car accident, her husband is stunned to discover that she had a lover who died alongside her.With thoughts of revenge on his mind, Fabien decides to find out about the lover's widow, Martine, first by stalking her, then by breaking into her home.He really needs to get Martine on her own. But she never goes anywhere without her formidable best friend, Madeleine...

A crime writer uses the modest advance on his latest novel to rent a house on the Normandy coast. There should be little to distract him from his work besides walks on the windswept beach, but as he begins to tell the tale of forty-something Louis - who, after dispatching his own mother, goes on to relieve others of their burdensome elderly relations - events in his own life begin to overlap with the work of his imagination.

Vultures at least have the decency to wait until their prey is dead before they rip it to pieces . . .At the home in the mountains he shares with his put-upon nurse, Thérèse, cantankerous retiree Édouard Lavenant is attempting to write his memoirs when a visitor calls, claiming to be his long-lost son. Jean-Baptiste's presence seems to bring about a softening of Édouard's temper, but the family reunion is soon threatened by the local vultures circling overhead . . .

Happiness for those unused to it is like food for the starving - a little too much can be fatal.'Writer Jeff Colombier is not accustomed to success. Twice divorced with a grown-up son he barely sees, he drinks too much and his books don't sell. Then he wins a big literary prize and his life changes for ever. Overwhelmed by his newfound wealth and happiness, he feels the need to escape and recapture his lost youth, taking his son, Damien, with him. And if shady characters lead them down eve...

If you have an inner life, you inevitably have a double life. It remained to be seen which of the two lives would gobble up the other.Brice and Emma had bought their new home in the countryside together. And then Emma disappeared. Now, as he awaits her return, Brice busies himself with DIY and walks around the village. He gradually comes to know his new neighbours including Blanche, an enigmatic woman in white, who has lived on her own in the big house by the graveyard since the death of h...

Recently widowed grandmother Éliette is returning to her home in the mountains when her micro-car breaks down. A stranger comes to her aid on foot. Éliette offers him a lift, glad of the interruption to her humdrum routine.That night, her neighbours' son is killed in a road accident. Could the tragedy be linked to the arrival of her good Samaritan?