From Publishers Weekly
British travel editor O'Brien makes an impressive debut with a gritty procedural set in the south of France. Chief Insp. Daniel Jacquot faces a baffling series of murders—the victims are all women who've been sexually assaulted and left in water. The killer's m.o. leads the press to dub him the Waterman. Under pressure to produce a speedy solution, Jacquot pursues inquiries that lead to several violent underworld figures, as well as to members of Marseilles's social elite. The author skillfully raises the tension by alternating his narrative perspective. The number of coincidences may strain credibility for some, but for most readers the biggest letdown will be in the identity of the Waterman, who's detected almost as an afterthought and primarily through the efforts of someone other than Jacquot. Hopefully, O'Brien, who clearly has the talent to do a better plotting job, will allow his canny hero to take a bigger role in catching the villain next time.
(Jan.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
If you're planning a vacation to all the hot spots on the map of European noir, put a star by Marseilles. First to hit the U.S. was Izzo's
Total Chaos (2005), an uncompromising look at racial tensions erupting into crime, and now we have O'Brien's take on seediness beneath the Mediterranean sun. Like Izzo's hero, O'Brien's lead character, Daniel Jacquot, is a Marseilles cop who came up rough, dabbling in crime on the city's meanest streets. Even so, he's unprepared for the Waterman, a serial killer who deposits the naked bodies of his female victims in one of the city's many bodies of water. Jacquot follows the Waterman's dripping trail across the city, encountering a plethora of sexual deviancy in the process but never quite closing the deal. A distinctly unsatisfying ending--almost as if O'Brien grew weary of the plot and decided to stop--is the only misstep in this atmospheric thriller. If O'Brien makes it all the way to the finish line next time, his series will more than live up to its promise.
Bill OttCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
