Long a renowned crime writer in France, Pierre Magnan has won numerous prizes and has a huge popular following in his native country. Now, with this mouth-watering series debut, Magnan introduces the celebrated Commissaire Laviolette to U.S. readers. In Banon, a small, peaceful village in upper Provençe, the local community's principal source of income is the cultivation and sale of truffles. Tourists rarely venture into this remote region, but a small group of outsiders have chosen to set up home on the outskirts of the village. When one of them is found dead in the freezer of a local hotel, and when more bodies are discovered in a family vault in the cemetery, it takes all of Commissaire Laviolette's considerable resources to unravel crimes whose origins can be traced to age-old secrets and superstitions.
