Sundays in August

From beloved storyteller and Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano, a masterly and gripping crime novel set in picturesque Nice on the French Riviera Stolen jewels, black markets, hired guns, crossed lovers, unregistered addresses, people gone missing, shadowy figures disappearing in crowds, newspaper stories uncomfortably close and getting closer . . . this ominous novel is Patrick Modianos most noirish work to date. Set in Nicea departure from the authors more familiar Paristhis novel evokes the bright sun and dark shadow of the Riviera. Modianos trademark ability to create a haunting atmosphere is here on full display: readers descend precipitously into a world of mystery, uneasiness, inevitability. A young couple in hiding keeps close watch over a notorious diamond necklace known as the Southern Cross. Its provenance is murky, its whereabouts known only to our hero and heroine, who find themselves trapped by its potential valueand its ultimate cost. Deftly Modiano reaches further and further into the past, revealing the secret histories of the two even as the pressurized present threatens to overwhelm them.