A Dwarf Kingdom

Description

For two decades Henri Castang has carved out a unique position in the annals of detective heroes. Nicolas Freeling's charismatic creation is a cop at heart, a bureaucrat by circumstance, a man forged in the fires of war-torn Europe who finds himself coping with a new European "community." Now, in Freeling's stunning new novel, Henri Castang makes his final appearance... It begins in a lovely garden at a lovely house in Bruxelles: an act of inexplicable brutality that leaves Castang and his wife, Vera, staggered and adrift, cut loose from the ties that held them to their life at the headquarters of the European Community. Coincidently, Castang's former boss in the Paris Police Judiciaire unexpectedly names Vera in his will, leaving her his Biarritz retirement house overlooking the Bay of Biscay. There, the couple finds they have inherited both the property and the last case of an aging but brilliant policeman. Castang doesn't see it coming until it is too late. A powerful white-collar criminal who had been under investigation by Castang's former chief covets the house and land where Castang and Vera have come to live. To get it now, this man whom Castang calls prince of a dwarf kingdom has resorted to the most terrible of tactics. Castang and his family are plunged into a nightmare of kidnapping. Following his instincts and his evidence, Castang ventures into an underground of criminals and lost souls. To do battle with the dwarf prince directly, Castang takes on the most unlikely of allies: a clan of terrorists and a beautiful killer called the Tigress...