WINNER, Ned Kelly Award, Best International Crime Fiction, 2025
The Booker-nominated author of Case Study and His Bloody Project brings us a clever and intriguing mystery, set in a small French town and featuring the troubled Chief Inspector Georges Gorski.
In the unremarkable French town of Saint-Louis, a mysterious stranger stalks the streets; an elderly woman believes her son is planning to do away with her; a prominent manufacturer drops dead. Between visits to the town's bars, Chief Inspector Georges Gorski mulls over the connections, if any, between these events, while all the time grappling with his own domestic and existential demons.
Graeme Macrae Burnet pierces the respectable bourgeois fa ade of small-town life in this deeply human story. He draws a wry humour from the tiniest of details and delves into the darkest recesses of his characters' minds to present a fascinating puzzle that blurs the boundaries between suspect, investigator and reader in an entertaining, profound and moving novel.
PRAISE-
'This quirky blend of psychological thriller and small-town life is both thought-provoking and entirely convincing.' Laura Wilson, Guardian
'5 stars. Burnet plays a metafictional game, but the book pulls off the rare double of being emotionally involving as well as teasingly tricksy.' Jake Kerridge, Telegraph
'The gifted writer, Burnet, makes a mockery of the genres publishers impose on credulous readers...A Case of Matricide demonstrates literary talent of the highest order...Details of place are especially rich, and the subtle mores of the small town are reflected in Gorse's misguided incorruptibility...Few writers can rival Burnet.' Andrew Roseheim, Spectator
'Serves up a tantalising blend of psychological thrills and small-town life in Saint-Louis, France...The novel delivers a convincing depiction of bureaucratic and provincial rot. Fans of the series will be pleased.' Publishers Weekly
'Macrae Burnet brings a slyly playful quality to his reimagining of the classic police procedural...And here delivers a wickedly funny novel that owes as much of a debt to Albert Camus as it does to Georges Simenon.' Declan Burke, Irish Times
'A deeply imagined and perfectly realised novel, and reading it is a dizzyingly immersive experience. Macrae Burnet's Gorski novels were already a significant achievement, but the concluding part is breathtaking-tragic, cinematic, propulsive-and marks a new standard in contemporary crime fiction. For anyone looking for genuinely ambitious crime fiction, this book is a gift.' Martin MacInnes, Booker-longlisted author of In Ascension
