Alex by Pierre Lemaître

The huge success of the Scandinavian thriller, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, means that graphic content is now a little more acceptable to a mainstream audience. As a consequence, books akin to Alex – an exceptionally taut and chilling account of a kidnapped woman-turned- tormentor and the first of Lemaître’s works to be translated into English – are now dominating the book charts.

At times, Alex is an uncomfortable read – as a beautiful woman is bundled into a van and imprisoned in an abandoned warehouse, the horror is palpable – but the reader can keep faith in the redoubtable detective who is in charge of finding her, Commandant Camille Verhoeven, and a stirring change of tack half way through will leave you gasping. Light bedtime reading, this certainly is not, but it is unbeatable for those who really love a pulse-quickening page-turner.

Originally published in the December 2013-January 2014 issue of France Today