BY A SLOW RIVER by Philippe Claudel

Note: I am not a paid reviewer, and I have purchased this title to read for my personal enjoyment.

A melancholy story set in a French village fifty miles from the front during WW1 that is narrated by a former policeman who comes back years later seeking answers about the heinous murder of a ten year old girl. His memories focus on a regal prosecutor who is both feared and revered, and a judge who rules as the sadistic local puissant. Our narrator’s frequent digressions paint a moving picture of despair in daily life proximate to the front, which is relieved briefly by the arrival of a lovely young village schoolteacher. The young schoolteacher’s suicide returns the village to its dark pall, and raises questions in our narrator’s reexamination of the murder, leading to memorable twists and turns. This short book wraps up with our narrator’s powerful reflections on a case that may or may not have been resolved without justice, the pursuit of which brought only grief and emptiness to his own life.