On a frozen New Year's Day a half-circle of dead bodies lies on freshly fallen snow in the French Jura. A nearby chalet contains the debris of a seemingly ordinary Christmas: champagne, presents for the dead children, and a strange leather-bound book, written in mysterious code, containing maps of the stars. When Dominique Carpentier, the Judge tasked with solving the mystery behind this suicide sect, discovers the book, she is lead to the Composer, Friedrich Groz, who is connected to every one of the dead. And so the pursuit begins.
As Carpentier is drawn into a world of complex family ties, ancient beliefs and seductive, disturbing music, she becomes more and more determined to crack the case. But has she met her match in the Composer?
Autorentext
Patricia Duncker is the author of the novels Hallucinating Foucault (winner of the Dillons First Fiction Award and the McKitterick Prize), The Deadly Space Between, and The Doctor, as well as collections of short stories and essays. Her
work has been shortlisted for the Macmillan Silver Pen Award and the
Commonwealth Writer's Prize. She is Professor of Contemporary Literature
at the University of Manchester.