{"product_id":"by-a-slow-river-by-phillipe-claudel","title":"'By a Slow River' by Phillipe Claudel","description":"\u003cp data-start=\"40\" data-end=\"605\"\u003eA dark, grave, beautifully controlled novel about a town marked by war, murder, grief, and moral rot.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"40\" data-end=\"605\"\u003eSet in a small French village during the First World War, \u003cem data-start=\"200\" data-end=\"217\"\u003eBy a Slow River\u003c\/em\u003e circles the death of a young girl, the uneasy authority of the local prosecutor, and the buried violence of people who have learned how to live beside horror. This is literary crime rather than genre crime: slow, bleak, psychologically watchful, with the feeling of a confession arriving much too late. It has shades of Simenon at his most existential, Bernanos, Patrick Modiano, and those postwar moral novels where landscape becomes an accomplice. A good one for readers who like mysteries with no clean absolution, historical fiction without pageantry, and novels where the village is less a community than a machine for keeping secrets.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-start=\"1090\" data-end=\"1429\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAnchor Books paperback, first Anchor Books edition, June 2007. Originally published in French as \u003cem data-start=\"1215\" data-end=\"1232\"\u003eLes Âmes grises\u003c\/em\u003e by Stock, Paris, 2003; translated from the French by Hoyt Rogers. Winner of the Prix Renaudot. Good second-hand condition with visible cover rubbing, light creasing\/edgewear, and general handling.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45702289719379,"sku":null,"price":14.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/thebowerbooker_99.png?v=1781516587","url":"https:\/\/bowerbooks.com\/products\/by-a-slow-river-by-phillipe-claudel","provider":"bower books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}