Book #27 Time is a Killer

Time Is a Killer by Michel Bussi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My thanks to the Orion Publishing Group and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC of Time is a Killer.

I have previously read After The Crash and Black Water Lilies by Michel Bussi (both excellent) so I had some idea of what to expect with this new book. So I thought. But Michel Bussi just gets better. He has an extraordinary ability to intrigue. Time is a Killer presents a broad tapestry of the Idrissi Corsican family. A catastrophic car crash in the summer of 1989 leaves three members of a family dead; only the daughter Clotilde survives. Wind on twenty-seven years. Clotilde (Clo) returns with her husband Frank and teenage daughter Valentine. Clo wants to exorcise the past and build bridges with her errant daughter. They visit the ravine where the crash occurred.

”It was here, Valentine. It was here that your Grandpa and Grandma died. And your Uncle Nicholas as well…". Frank and Valentine appear disinterested.

In 1989 Clotilde kept a journal of events that summer. It remained lost for twenty-seven years. Or so she thought. Someone is reading it. Could it contain clues to what really happened? And then Clotilde receives a letter, in her mother’s unmistakeable handwriting. As if she were still alive…

Bussi moves smoothly from events in 1989 to present day. Fragments of memory return to Clotilde. But how can her mother be alive? The tension and menace builds, page after page. The pace is relentless as further clues surface. The reveal is breathtaking.

The Corsican characters are totally believable, some hide behind omertà, the code of honour that places importance on silence and non-cooperation with authorities. What is there to hide?

Michel Bussi has written another compelling and stunning read with a truly shocking ending. Certainly a candidate for my Best Read of 2018.

Praise must also go to Shaun Whiteside for the brilliant translation from the original French.

Highly recommended.

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