The Murdered House by Pierre Magnan
Title: The Murdered House
Author/website(s): Pierre Magnan
247 pages
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Publication date: November ’09 (original french publication date: ’84)
Genre: Mystery
Would I recommend this book: DNF @ pg. 50
Would I read more from this author: Most likely no
Journal notes: I was so looking forward to reading The Murdered House but frankly I found this story line just plain strange. I got through the beginning where the family except for the baby is murdered. So far so good. Then we jump ahead 23 or so years and the child has become a man newly returned home from WWI. Still doing OK. Then things just go south. He learns the story, or part of it, surrounding the murder of his family. He finds himself drawn back to start destroying the house as he is haunted by images of a mother he never knew. Then low and behold two country lasses are drawn to him for no apparent reason. One comes on to him and the other steps in his way as he starts his path of destruction. And now I’m done with The Murdered House.
One dark night in the winter of 1896, in remote upper Provence, a family is brutally massacred. Only a three-week-old baby miraculously survives. In 1920, the orphan, Seraphin Monge, finally returns home from the war to pursue the truth. Haunted by the image of his mother’s dying moments, he turns on the house that has seen such misery, destroying it stone by stone. As the walls crumble, the killers’ identities are laid bare and his anger turns to vengeance. But for every murder Seraphin plots, another hand silently executes it in his place.
(The Murdered House was provided to me by Anne at Minotaur Books. I was not paid and this book is being passed along to the another book blogger through Read It Forward 
)
Posted in 6 Responses to “The Murdered House by Pierre Magnan”
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I’m guessing this was translated from French and I’m wondering if it suffered in the translation.
It was translated. That was a fault sited at Amazon which I read after I wrote my piece.
YIKES! That’s two books in a row that failed!
That’s pretty common for me. It doesn’t bother me to DNF a book. My reading time is precious. I won’t spend time reading something that doesn’t interest me when there are so many other books calling to me.
Have you already sent it on? I wouldn’t mind giving it a try…. bookdragonslair at gmail dot com.
Its yours so check your email.