Peur sur Montmartre - Maryse Rivière

In terms of plot, a serial killer who is leaving a signature beside his victims isn't anything new, even if the killer is copying the method of another serial killer, but Maryse Rivière has a few interesting elements to throw into the mix of Peur sur Montmartre as well as an intriguing group of characters.  Whether they ultimately contribute anything of substance is doubtful, but there's certainly an escalating series of events with unusual connections to keep you hooked here. 

It's Lulu, Lucien Despoisses, a homeless person (SDF) who is the first to get a premonition of what is to come.  Fearful of an attempted attack on a fellow tramp beside the Seine in the centre of Paris, he relocates to the north of the city, to the bohemian district of Montmartre with its booksellers and antiquarian dealers.  Just before Christmas however, a Polish tramp sleeping beside him is murdered with the signature of a chalk face left at the scene, and soon after that, the editor of a small press book publisher is killed with the same signature left in her room.

The signature has personal significance for police officer Damien Escoffier, a captain in the Brigade Criminelle, whose fiancée was murdered eight years previously by a killer using the same methods who is now locked up in prison.  Escoffier inevitably has a very different view on the killings than his colleagues, and it perhaps leads him to operate now strictly according to procedure, but then nothing seems to follow conventional criminal behaviour in this case.

Rivière develops interesting backgrounds for each of the characters in Peur sur Montmartre and follows through some other diverse cultural elements relating to the bohemian characters of Montmartre.  Some history stretching back to the student rebellion of May '68 plays a part in the plot, and there is even an element of African fetishes and voodoo rituals.  Ultimately, these prove to be more like interesting side details and diversions that add to the character of the district rather than have any direct bearing on the investigation, although perhaps they could be seen as adding something of a wider exploration of the nature of fear and evil.  It all 'descends' into a rather disappointingly conventional thriller ending, but the author balances the mystery and revelations well.