NOW DEAD IS ANY MAN

Another remembered episode in the career of M. Pinaud, Superman of the SûretÉ--who this time is confronted with the shot-and-weighted body of Henri Rostand, pulled out of the Seine. Pinaud begins investigating, but he soon receives a visit from Rostand's employer Conrad Roche--shady, powerful tycoon and dispenser of the usual veiled threats. And indeed dangers immediately start lurking: Pinaud is shot at; his wife is kidnapped (and rescued); his two daughters are kidnapped (and rescued); his partner (on loan from the Marseilles force) is bribed to attempt a Pinaud murder and to ensure a huge drug delivery. . . the reason for it all. Limp derring-do, delivered in prose which manages to be both flat and florid--erratic M. Audemars at his weakest.