Praise for The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau "A stylish, atmospheric mystery with a startling twist . . . satisfies like Simenon and surprises like Ruth Rendell. I can't give it any higher praise."--NPR "A brilliant character study of a social outcast and a creepy, twisting, deviously well-constructed story of intrigue and murder that reads like a lost classic."--Thomas Mullen, author of Darktown " The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau is a quietly relentless exploration of the complexities of guilt and the awkwardness and banality of evil. An intensely inventive novel, as subtle as it is shocking."--Ian McGuire, author of The North Water "Graeme Macrae Burnet avoids the black and the white and paints a picture of a troubled, paranoid outsider drifting through the gray areas of life. He grabs the reader by the chin and holds them captive as they watch Manfred Baumann?s life and psyche slowly unravel under the scrutiny of a detective?s eye."--Robin Yocum, author of Favorite Sons and The Essay "A captivating psychological thriller ... Very accessible and thoroughly satisfying." The Herald "A strikingly singular talent" Scottish Book Trust "It's only a story --or is it-- Graeme Macrae Burnet makes such masterly use of the narrative form that the horrifying tale he tells in HIS BLOODY PROJECT, a finalist for this year's Man Booker Prize, seems plucked straight out of Scotland's sanguinary historical archives." - Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review "Thought-provoking fiction."-- The New York Times Book Review , Editors' Choice"[A] powerful, absorbing novel" Fiction authors from Henry James to Vladimir Nabokov to Gillian Flynn have used [an unreliable narrator] to induce ambiguity, heighten suspense and fold an alternative story between the lines of a printed text. Mr. Burnet, a Glasgow author, does all of that and more in this page-turning period account of pathos and violence in 19th-century Scotland" [A] cleverly constructed tale. Has the lineaments of the crime thriller but some of the sociology of a Thomas Hardy novel." -Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal "Burnet is a writer of great skill and authority . . . few readers will be able to put down His Bloody Project as it speeds towards a surprising (and ultimately puzzling) conclusion." - Financial Times "A stellar crime novel and a wrenching historical portrait, HIS BLOODY PROJECT also succeeds at lyrically questioning whether it's possible to know another man's mind--or even desirable. The novel sends out vines in all directions, its characters' tangled motives obscured by tragedy and lies." - Lyndsay Faye, author of Gods of Gotham "Clever and gripping" - Library Journal , starred review"Psychologically astute and convincingly grounded in its environment . . . a fine achievement." - The National "Fiendishly readable . . . A psychological thriller masquerading as a slice of true crime. . . The book is also a blackly funny investigation into madness and motivation." - Guardian ". . .sly, poignant, gritty, thought-provoking, and sprinkled with wit."- Publishers Weekly , starred review"I disappeared inside the pages of Graeme Macrae Burnet's His Bloody Project. . . fascinating" - Seattle Times "Burnet has created an eloquent character who will stick with you long after the book is read." - Seattle Review of Books "Both a horrific tale of violence and a rumination on the societal problems for poor sharecroppers of the era." - Time "One of the most convincing and engrossing novels of the year." - The Scotsman "A truly ingenious thriller as confusingly multilayered as an Escher staircase" - Daily Express "There is no gainstaying the ingenuity with which Burnet has constructed his puzzle. . ." - Telegraph "A masterful psychological thriller" - Ian Stephen, author of A Book of Death and Fish "A gripping crime story, a deeply imagined historical novel, and gloriously written, all in one tour-de-force of a book. Stevensonian, that's the highest praise I can give." - Chris Dolan, Sunday Herald , Books of the Year"Psychologically astute and convincingly grounded in its environment, this study of petty persecution and murder is a fine achievement from an ambitious and accomplished writer." - Richard Strachan, The National "Masterful, clever and playful . . . one of the most experimental and assured authors currently writing in Scotland" - Louise Hutcheson, A Novel Bookblog "One of the most enjoyable and involving novels you'll read this year" - Alistair Braidwood, Scots Wha Hae Graeme Macrae Burnet has established a reputation for smart and literary mystery writing with his highly praised novel, His Bloody Project , which was named a finalist for the Man Booker Award in 2016. He was born and brought up in Kilmarnock and has lived in Prague, Bordeaux, Porto, and London. He now lives in Glasgow, Scotland. Read more
Features & Highlights
"A stylish, atmospheric mystery with a startling twist . . . satisfies like Simenon and surprises like Ruth Rendell. I can't give it any higher praise."--NPR
Manfred Baumann is a loner. Socially awkward and perpetually ill at ease, he spends his evenings quietly drinking and surreptitiously observing Adèle Bedeau, the sullen but alluring waitress at a drab bistro in the unremarkable small French town of Saint-Louis. One day, she simply vanishes into thin air and Georges Gorski, a detective haunted by his failure to solve one of his first murder cases, is called in to investigate the girl's disappearance. He sets his sights on Manfred. As Manfred cowers beneath Gorski's watchful eye, the murderous secrets of his past begin to catch up with him and his carefully crafted veneer of normalcy falters. His booze-soaked unraveling carries him from Saint-Louis to the back alleys of Strasbourg. Graeme Macrae Burnet's masterful play on literary form featuring an unreliable narrator makes for a grimly entertaining psychological thriller that questions if it is possible, or even desirable, to know another man's mind.
Customer Reviews
Rating Breakdown
★★★★★
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★★★★
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★★★
15%
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★★
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★
28%
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Most Helpful Reviews
★★★★★
5.0
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Unique, In-depth and Gripping
I rarely rate a book this high because I am a very tough critic, but this author is outstanding and needs to be applauded. Not only is he a clear and clever writer, he creates a unique atmosphere unlike the huge majority of mysteries. His books are both secretive and revealing, moving through the plots and well-developed characters at a perfect pace. I have read "His Bloody Project" and this one and can't wait to read his newest one. I am firmly embedded as a big fan.
16 people found this helpful
★★★★★
5.0
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Mind games
You know you’re being pushed off-kilter as soon as you open the cover of this short gem. The cover says the book is written by Graeme Macrae Burnet, but the title page says the author is Raymond Brunet, translated and with an afterword by Graeme Macrae Burnet. Of course the similarity between the two names gives you a flashing neon sign as to what’s really going on, but when you read that afterword (which I won’t spoil for you), you can’t help but be tickled by the author’s inventiveness.
In between the cover page and the afterword is a short, noir bit of Eurocrime, with hardly a wasted word. The main character is Manfred Baumann, a 30-ish loner living in Saint-Louis, an Alsatian border town. Baumann, born in Switzerland, is a regular at the Restaurant de la Cloche, and even plays bridge with three other regulars once a week, but he has no friends, no social life. Despite being a bright and good-looking young man, he has always been an outsider.
Manfred leads a dull banker’s life in a dreary town. He eats at the Cloche every day, having the same meal on the same day each week, ordering the meal he thinks he should choose rather than what he might prefer. He avoids seeing people in his drab apartment building.
There is something not right about Manfred.
Manfred finds Adèle, the coarse waitress at the Cloche strangely attractive, not that he would ever consider doing anything about it; of course not. But he does watch her a couple of times when she leaves work. When Adèle fails to turn up at the Cloche one day, police detective Georges Gorski investigates.
Gorski’s life is a little dreary too. He’s never been recruited to a bigger police department, his fashionista wife finds his policeman status embarrassing, and he is obsessed with a long-ago murder of a young woman that he was never able to solve.
This is a taut tale of two men caught up in an investigation. The focus is on their psychology. It’s a short book and if you possibly can, I recommend reading it in one sitting.
10 people found this helpful
★★★★★
3.0
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Deceptively attributed
The dust cover carries the name "Graeme Macrae Burnet" thus one would be led to believe he was the author. Two of the reviews on the back of the dust cover also describe the book as if it were written by Burnet. The inside fly leaf of the dust cover carries this: "From the author of the Man Booked finalist: His Bloody Project comes a haunting literary mystery and engrossing psychological thriller." Obviously playing on Burnet's name and reputation when he was not the author of the book. The author of this rather autobiographical novel was Raymond Brunet. Graeme Burnet's role was to translate the story from the original French. The book is described as "a historical thriller", whereas the only "history" is that the murder in the story took place some twenty years earlier. Despite these deceptions, it is a good and readable tale with some obvious "Dostoyevskian" tones. It is not of the quality of the book actually written by Burnet: "His Bloody Project".
9 people found this helpful
★★★★★
2.0
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Misleading “Historical Thriller” Subtitle Is a Mystery
It’s a mystery, why THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ADELE BEDEAU is subtitled “A Historical Thriller”. It’s NOT historical (unless you consider a novel first published in 1982 to be “historical”), and it’s NOT a thriller (it’s slow-moving and extremely boring). It’s not even an “unreliable narrator” mystery, because the narrators’ accounts are totally accurate (allowing for the fact that one character is paranoid). What it is, is a psychological study of a loner personality (Manfred Baumann), and of the lasting effects of guilt (over a murder) on the two central characters (Baumann; and Georges Gorski, the policeman who’s investigating the disappearance).
In the novel, a waitress disappears from a bistro in Saint-Louis (a backwater town on the Swiss-French border). Gorski investigates, and interviews the bistro’s regulars (including Baumann). This routine inquiry triggers paranoia in Baumann, who is a perpetual outsider. He constantly observes the people around him without understanding or connecting with them; and the people respond with polite tolerance of Baumann’s presence. Baumann becomes obsessed with maintaining his daily routine and the appearance of normalcy.
In Gorski, the inquiry triggers guilt over a murder he investigated and “solved” many years earlier. Gorski believes the convicted murderer was innocent. Gorski also harbors guilt over his inability to make progress in solving the mystery of the waitress’ disappearance.
About a third of the way into the novel, there is an unexpected revelation about Baumann, which explains his retreat from society. However, the bulk of the novel records Baumann’s inner thoughts about appearances, and about his paranoid belief that Gorski is constantly watching him.
The novel is well-written, but boring. It’s okay as a literary mystery, but it’s a waste of time if you’re expecting a psychological thriller.
8 people found this helpful
★★★★★
4.0
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Character studies in self-consciousness.
Graeme Macrae Burnet is a master of the unconventional psychological thriller - if indeed ‘thriller’ is the right word for a novel as low-key as this. I loved it.
Manfred Baumann is a thirtysomething social misfit, a loner, ill at ease with himself and others. Even performing such a mundane task as his laundry in the basement of his apartment building leaves him squirming with embarrassment in case he encounters another resident. He dines daily at the Restaurant de la Cloche, a drab bistro in the dull-as-dishwater town of Saint-Louis where he lives and works. When his regular waitress goes missing, suspected murdered, he is questioned by local police inspector Gorski. Obsessed by how others might view him, Manfred decides to conceal the truth. But Gorski can spot a lie a mile off. He is himself something of a misfit who is almost as self-conscious as his prey. And so begins a dance between the two men that provides two superb character studies. The story may unfold at an escargot-like pace - but it's an enthralling read.
Graeme Macrae Burnet is the author of Booker-nominated ‘His Bloody Project’ and 'The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau' is the precursor to his equally outstanding ‘The Accident on the A35’, also set in Saint-Louis. Having read them in the wrong order, I can honestly say that it made no difference to my enjoyment of either novel. This is an intriguing slow-burn of a book: not one extraneous word, barely an adverb in sight and, to top it all, a brilliant Afterword. Bravo Mr Macrae Burnet! I look forward to seeing more of your Inspector Gorski...
3 people found this helpful
★★★★★
5.0
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Personal chaos?
Okay, last week I began reading Graeme Burnet's new novel, "The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau", a mystery set in the Alsace region of France. I was enjoying the book - a solid four star - when I read a review of the book on Goodreads by a reviewer friend. As I was reading Roger's review, I realised that Burnet's book was NOT the simple mystery I thought it was. There is more, much more, to the book and I had better read deeper to find it. (And that's all I'm going to say about the book itself, because I don't want to put up a "Spoiler" warning.)
Burnet's book is set in the early 1980's small Alsatian city of Saint-Louis, which is just across the Rhine from Germany and Switzerland. Two local men - banker Manfred Baumann and police detective Georges Gorski - are caught up in a cat-and-mouse game over the disappearance of barmaid, Adele Bedeau. Bedeau goes missing and Gorski fastens on Baumann early on in the investigation. Each man lives a life of quiet desperation, though Gorski hides his disappointing existence better than Baumann, who is one of the creepier characters I've come across in 50 years of reading detective novels. (Picture a wanna-be Dr Hannibal Lector without the ferocious jaw and the energy to eat people). But the questions become: is Adele Bedeau really missing and who killed a young woman in the woods near Baumann's childhood home thirty years previously?
Graeme Burnet's book is more of a character study as the Baumann and Gorski try desperately to navigate the small-town life of Saint-Louis. The town, filled with bars and restaurants which seem to be everybody in the book's homes-away-from-home, functions as almost a reflection of the chaos going on in the two men's lives. The book's ending is not particularly a shock and is appropriate to what comes before. And after reading Roger's review - and seeing the book in a new light - I'm upping it from a 4 star to a 5 star.
3 people found this helpful
★★★★★
4.0
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A well written and different (for me at least) book.
I initially chose this book for my mother as I thought it was along the lines of what she likes to read but she decided she did not want to read it so I gave it a try. It's a bit out of my normal milieu as I'm more a sci-fi, fantasy or action kind of guy but this book did keep my attention. It has a very good character development going into great detail of the life of the main character and rounding out the supporting cast nicely.
The narrative was a bit odd for me, whether that is due to the fact that it is a translation or that it is just the way the author wrote, I don't know. It isn't bad, per se, just different from anything that I have read before. The description of the various locations is detailed and interesting, as are the details about the different characters.
The book did keep me entertained through to the end and the story was quite suspenseful for most of it (it is a fairly short book). It took me a bit to figure out what was going on but once I did, I didn't feel the need to stop reading as the story was quite interesting.
I would recommend this short read for anyone looking for a somewhat different take on the "who done it" type of genre.
2 people found this helpful
★★★★★
5.0
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Taut detective story and psychological thriller
After reading both this book and GMB’s second one, HIS BLOODY PROJECT, one after the other, I’m amused and impressed by what I would call his new brand of meta-fiction. I don’t want to spoil it for readers working it out for themselves, but the author’s sly tricks might keep you scratching your head regarding the approach of ending this book, and beginning the second one. I’ll leave it at that, and just talk about my enthusiasm for his work.
Adèle is a young, sullen waitress at the Restaurant de la Cloche, a restaurant/bar in Saint-Louis, a small nothing of a town not far from the border of Switzerland. There’s a regular crowd that frequents the place and plays poker, where quirky loner and creature of habit, Manfred Baumann, joins in the game once a week. The rest of the week after work as a pallid bank manager, he sits at the bar, eyes Adèle in the bar mirror, and ruminates about his empty life.
When Adèle goes missing, Inspector Georges Gorski from the local police department starts investigating. He’s a taciturn sort with a visible melancholy, some of which relates to an unsolved murder 20 years ago, when he was a fresh rookie. His appearance in this investigation makes the introverted Manfred uncomfortable, and the story, a slow burn, is primarily focused on his growing paranoia. He doesn’t like to partake much of the human race, except for his rather flaccid social life at the bar, and a regular visit to Strasbourg. He presents with a heavy dose of social anxiety and inability to chat up women without a lot of bumbling.
Gorski is not the main subject here, but his presence looms large, especially as the narrative progresses. To Manfred, Gorski is his nemesis; each time Baumann is questioned by the detective, his cage is increasingly rattled. Gorski is a man who dislikes hunches, and prefers to proceed with logic and concrete evidence, not on intuition, so his manner of investigation is incremental and built on logic.
The reader, who is privy to Manfred’s present thoughts, is in for a few surprises. The author excels at his craft, with his dark wit and nuanced, sophisticated style. The writing flowed as if it was effortless, but, after the conclusion, reflecting on the architecture of the story, I was even doubly impressed. The author created a scintillating psychological thriller, unpacking his characters and plot with a taut restraint.
I eagerly look forward to Graeme Burnet Macrae’s next book, coming out in October, another mystery featuring Georges Gorski, titled THE ACCIDENT ON THE A35.
2 people found this helpful
★★★★★
4.0
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A Study in Paranoia
I read "The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau", by Graeme Macrae Burnet, while waiting out Hurricane Harvey in my home in Houston (I didn't flood). So it's a testament to Burnet's amazing storytelling talent that I was able to take my mind off the melee going on outside and enjoy this elegantly written psychological mystery.
The two main characters are, creepy loner, Manfred Baumann, and provincial French detective, Georges Gorski. A young waitress, Adele Bedeau, has disappeared, and Gorski suspects that Baumann knows more than he's telling. This Hitchcock-ian plot and tone provides a gradual sense of unease. Did Baumann have something to do with Adele's disappearance? His growing paranoia as Gorski closes in is wonderfully rendered in Burnet's skillful prose.
Take note of the title page and the "Translator's Afterward" which are both parts of the novel (fiction), and an amusing conceit of Burnet's. I read that he is working on a sort of sequel to this novel and I would be first in line to read it! I still have some questions!
2 people found this helpful
★★★★★
3.0
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MANFRED BAUMANN WAS AT HIS USUAL PLACE BY THE BAR --
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ADELE BEDEAU
For me, this book was just okay. Not horrible, but certainly, for me, not wonderful. I wanted to enjoy this book so much, but for some reason, that just didn't happen. Originally written in 1982, this book has been translated from French and now people are enjoying. Well, some people.
Manfred Baumann is a loner and kind of creepy to boot. He is consumed by a waitress at a bar he frequents, one Adele Bedeau. He cannot stop thinking of her and is to the point of almost becoming a stalker. Then, one day, Adele doesn't show up for work -
Georges Gorski is the detective called in on the Adele Bedeau case. He has his reasons to want to crack this case. Naturally, he targets in on Manfred Baumann. And you are off and running. Gorski is a man on a mission and Baumann's sad little world starts to crack.
I had a hard time connecting with this book even though I tried so hard to enjoy. At times it felt as if I were doing homework, reading a school textbook that I did not want to read. The writing is VERY good, but the story line just didn't work for me.
I am in the minority in thinking this book is just okay. Plenty of others have truly enjoyed this book so I believe you may wish to give it a try.
