The Messengers of Death - Tapa blanda

Emile Pencenat is in a cemetery, designing his own ornate tomb. In a disused postbox by the gate he discovers an envelope addressed to a Mlle Véronique Champourcieux. He is puzzled but, being a former postman, he dutifully purchases a stamp and posts the letter.

When the body of this same Mlle Véronique is later discovered -- pinned to her own piano by a bayonet attached to an ancient rifle -- Commissaire Laviolette is coaxed out of retirement to solve one of the most bizarre crimes imaginable.

Tautly plotted and brimming with suspense, Magnan's latest novel to be translated into English is a story of dark vengeance and avarice, linking the peasant community of Upper Provence to nineteenth-century South Africa. It will thrill and intrigue M. Magnan's ever-growing following in the English-speaking world.

Pierre Magnan was born in Manosque in 1922 and has rarely left his native Provence. In 1943, during the Occupation, he fought with the Resistance in the Isère, and in 1946 he published his first novel, L'Aube Insolite. During his lifetime he published over twenty novels, four of which have so far been translated into English. He died in May 2012, at the age of 89.