Immerse In Tight-Lipped (Franck Guerin #5) Authored By David Barrie Offered As Printed Matter

Paris, intellectuals are rock, JeanJacques Marsay is no exception, prized for his writings and adored for his public appearances, His wife, a beautiful and talented actress, is no less famous, They live a charmed life,

Not so Virginie Desmoulins, found strapped to her bed and drained of her blood, She had been working closely with Marsay, editing his latest book, When last seen alive she was in an expensive restaurant, dining têteàtête with his wife, She is the first of their circle to die, Others will follow.

Handling the investigation, Franck Guerin of the Brigade Criminelle unearths a host of hidden truths, becoming the custodian of the couple's secrets.
Which ought to worry him, That is the one thing all the victims had in common,

The fifth Franck Guerin novel from David Barrie demonstrates what a dangerous thing the truth can be, TightLipped is the fifth detective novel to feature Franck Guerin of the Brigade Criminelle from the pen of David Barrie, It's a good two years since I shared a few expressos with Franck and I was beginning to think I'd seen the last of him.
But like all good detectives they always turn up when you aren't expecting them, In fact it's Franck who is rudely awakened in the middle of the night and whisked off to a location somewhere rural, without so much as a few moments to bolt back his ritual morning expresso.
His old job has come back to haunt him as the DCRI counter espionage/terrorism, led by his old boss the steely chain smoking Catherine Vautrin, try to close in on ecoterrorist Grabriel Agostini, an elusive character who doesn't flinch at murder to advance his ideals and whose escape four years ago at the infamous Corsican Incident resulted in Franck's forced career change.
Agostini is nowhere to be seen but the scene of the tipoff is found to be occupied by famed intellectual JeanJacques Marsay, who it turns out is writing a book about the terrorist and his organisation.
On returning to Paris Franck is called to a murder scene with Marsay's editor Virginie Desmoulins, lying in a pool of her own blood and tied to her bed.

As ever the investigation follows Franck's gathering of the threads that connect the victims and their potential killers, Franck isn't one for car chases or gratuitous action scenes, instead he meets for probing conversations in Paris' multitude of cafes, empty expresso cup already cooling at his elbow, as he seeks out the

chinks in everyone's armour, collecting secrets and contradictions like ammunition for the fight.
Agostini has lurked in the background of several of Frank's investigations in the past but none so much as this one, Franck's search for Virginie's killer brings him into territory that Vautrin and her DCRI occupy, but with both parties believing that their own target takes precedence interdepartmental cooperation isn't to the fore.

The intellectual world of Marsay, his voice and philosophies come across well, which isn't always the case when an author creates a character who is supposedly more intellectual than themselves.
France treats its philosophers and big thinkers differently than many cultures, giving them status and veneration akin to celebrities elsewhere, It makes for an interesting background for the investigation with Marsay's notoriety overlapping his wife's profile in the French film industry as a respected actress and the inner workings of the publishing world behind Marsay's upcoming controversial book.

Barrie's plot is intricate enough to keep folk guessing until the 'pages remaining' grows thin, Though the clues are all there if you backtrack, Apart from Franck's official team working under the judicial eye of Yves de Chaumont, he sometimes consults Sylvie Thomas on matters with a monetary factor, finance and big business being one of the detective's blind spots.
And Sonia Delemazure, a model, usually turns up, sometimes with a troop, Think the antithesis of the Baker Street Irregulars with an access all areas pass to the high and the famous, She also has some of the lighter scenes with Franck as we learn the level of knowledge he has of bras and his proficiency at Pétanque a type of Boules.

The strengths of the previous books are all there as usual strong sense of place, good characterisation and intelligent plotting, Paris is brought alive throughout with the backstreets and nooks featuring just as much as the tourist traps,
TightLipped is out in paperback in October, If you pick up a copy fire up the expresso machine, and find a quiet spot but just remember, don't try to keep up with Franck, David Barrie is a crime writer who has lived in Paris for over twenty years, The city looms large in his NOIR CHIC crime novels, A sense of place has always been one of the foundations of quality crime fiction, Barries novels are true to the city in which they are set: stylish, sophisticated and crafted with an eye for the tiniest detail, As for Barries own take on what he does, heres an extract from a recent interview: “Crime fiction is a genre that has never turned its back on the simple pleasures of colourful characters and compelling plots.
Its not ashamed to be entertaining, even while its doing its best to keep the reader on his or her toes, ” If its dark, alluring and has a wicked sense of style, its probably NOIR CHIC, .