A minor French official in Guinea must solve the case of a tourist found hanged from a sailboat in this "gem of a diplomatic thriller" (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
Having grown up in Romania, Aurel Timescu never quite fit in his native France. A former piano player with the disheveled air of a character from between the wars, nobody can understand how he got to be Consul. Now he's taken a position in French Guinea, where...

Cici dreams of being a novelist. Her favorite subject: people, especially adults. She's been watching them and taking notes. Everybody has one special secret, Cici figures, and if you want to write about people, you need to understand what's hiding inside them. But now she's discovered something truly strange: an old man who disappears into the forest every Sunday with huge pots of paint in all sorts of colors. What is he up to? Why does he look so...