Last year, I reviewed Alex by the same author, a clever but gruesome thriller.
Irene is also (translated from French) actually a ''prequel'' and book two of a trilogy, so it seems silly to have published the English versions in the wrong order.
The diminutive Police Commandant Camille Verhoeven and his odd team are again principal characters, with Camille's wife Irene expecting their first child.
But his blissful state is shaken by the discovery of a serial killer who murders with great savagery.
I did not appreciate the graphic descriptions of atrocities but Lemaitre uses a clever device of paying tribute to earlier writers in the genre by having the villain base his crimes progressively on different classic crime novels.
Camille also has great worries with a challenging newspaper reporter who gets regular leaks of information about the cases. I found this book more gripping than the previous one.
- Geoff Adams is a former ODT editor.
