Rosy & John by Pierre Lemaitre

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A short, sharp thriller with a delicious twist.

A bomb is detonated on a Paris street, luckily resulting in no fatalities and only minor injuries.

The bomber hands himself in to the police, claiming there are six more bombs planted around the city. He says he will cooperate, but with one stipulation - he will only talk to Camille Verhœven.

Temporarily assigned the case, Verhœven listens to the bomber's demands. With the clock ticking down to the next detonation, Camille and the team find themselves trapped in a race against time to prevent further calamity.

'Rosy and John', a companion novella to Pierre Lemaitre’s trilogy of novels featuring Commandant Camille Verhœven, is an intense, fast-paced thriller, told from the dual perspectives of the police investigating the case and the bomber himself – packing elements of both police procedural and psychological thriller into a tightly woven narrative, events spread across a period of only three days.

I loved ‘Irène’, ‘Alex’ and ‘Camille’, and ‘Rosy and John’ is a thrilling addition to the trilogy. Set between the events in the second and third novels - 'Alex' and 'Camille' - the novella is intensely plot-driven, capitalising on the series’ earlier character development to focus on events, building the suspense as the clock counts down to the final revelation. Including spoilers for the first two novels and also subtlely foreshadowing the third novel, I would recommend reading them in either publication or chronological order and to avoid starting with this story.

Thoroughly gripping and entertaining, ‘Rosy and John’ is a relentless police thriller and a welcome return to the world of Camille Verhœven.



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