Bird in a Cage by French noir master Frederic Dard has recently been republished ~ deadly deceit in 1960's Paris. It's an enigmatic, slow boiling thriller as enchanting and melancholy as walking the empty, snow laden Parisian streets throughout the darkened hours of the night - it is in fact, Christmas.
Albert returns to his childhood home, empty after his mother died years ago, where everything remains the same. Wandering into the night, he meets a young woman and her daughter in a brasserie and helps carry her sleepy child home. They have a drink then continue walking the winter streets. When they return to her home, they discover her ex-husband - evidently a suicide, the gun on the floor. She sends him away after calling the police, and in a panic goes to church. Is she biding time, in shock, or looking for an alibi? Circumstances bring them together again when he and another man help her home, and all three enter the apartment to find - no husband, no mess, no body! Slowly he is pulled into this mystery, caught between wanting to help her and figuring out how a dead body can appear and disappear without explanation - but he is the wrong man to investigate, for he has a murderous past of his own!
This unsettling little thriller has a quiet momentum, moody and atmospheric. The explanation for the events is ingenious and his descent into the night unravels like a paranoid nightmare. The romantic angle is equally strong, and the reader's belief in it holds the key to his salvation. Dard was one of the best known and most prolific French crime writers of the twentieth century. This was first rate and highly recommended to mystery fans, with a title whose meaning changed throughout the night.
Faultless.
My other reviews for Frederic Dard:
1961 / Tradeback / 123 pages
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