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A Case of Matricide

Inspector Gorski Investigation, Book 3

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A Case of Matricide

By: Graeme Macrae Burnet
Narrated by: Geoffrey Breton
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About this listen

In the unremarkable French town of Saint-Louis, a mysterious stranger stalks the streets; an elderly woman believes her son is planning to do away with her; a prominent manufacturer drops dead. Between visits to the town’s hostelries, Chief Inspector Georges Gorski ponders the connections, if any, between these events, while all the time grappling with his own domestic and existential demons.

Graeme Macrae Burnet once again pierces the respectable bourgeois façade of small-town life in this, the concluding part of his trilogy of Gorski novels. He injects a wry humour into the tiniest of details and delves into the darkest recesses of his characters’ minds, but above all provides an entertaining, profound and moving listen.

2025, Ned Kelly Awards Best International Crime Fiction, Short-listed

2025, NSW History Awards Australian History Prize, Short-listed

©2024 Graeme Macrae Burnet (P)2024 Bolinda Publishing Crime Fiction International Mystery & Crime Mystery

Critic reviews

'A deeply imagined and perfectly realised novel, and reading it is a dizzyingly immersive experience … [this] concluding part is breathtaking – tragic, cinematic, propulsive – and marks a new standard in contemporary crime fiction.’ (Martin MacInnes, Booker-longlisted author of In Ascension)
'This quirky blend of psychological thriller and smalltown life is both thought-provoking and entirely convincing.' (Laura Wilson, The Guardian)
'The Best Recent Crime and Thrillers.' (The Guardian)
'A tantalizing blend of psychological thrills and small-town life … a convincing depiction of bureaucratic and provincial rot. Fans of the series will be pleased.' (Publishers Weekly)
All stars
Most relevant
I enjoyed book 3 in the series. It's important to read them all as they intertwine. Less crime stories than learning about characters and inner thoughts. If you like the other two stories, you will probably enjoy this one too.

But the performance left a LOT to be desired. Lots of sniffing/gasping/vaping that I never noticed by this narrator before. Unusual gaps and pronunciations also don't help. Very distracting.

Four stars for the story. Two stars for production/ performance.

Good story, badly produced

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An enjoyable, wwll-observed, if slightly depressing trilogy of small town life. Venal men win the day although there's some light in the humanity of most of the female characters and Gorsky himself.

the humanity in the detail

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Thoroughly enjoyed the conclusion to this trilogy but regretting not reading the book rather than listening. The narrator is all over the place. Awkward pauses, odd gasps and breaths. At times he sounds bored of reading it. Very disappointing.

Great conclusion to the trilogy let down by an awful narration.

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Gorski’s return has been eagerly anticipated. He’s a small-town French cop - the unremarkable town in question is Saint-Louis. The novels (this is the third of a trilogy) owe a debt to Belgian author Georges Simenon’s Maigret stories. Like Maigret’s adventures, Gorski operates in a world of moral ambiguity - shades of grey, rather than black and white. Gorski himself is a troubled soul - a heavy drinker in a crumbling marriage to the daughter of the arrogant local mayor. But he’s hard-working - and (usually) a stickler for the rules. In A Case of Matricide, Gorski is confronted with at least one probable murder. There are mysterious characters, including a Slav who’s booked into a local hotel and a once-famous writer - who may or may not be plotting matricide. There are references back to the previous novels, so it is worth reading or listening in order. There’s something mesmerising and immersive about these novels, in which description and characterisation tend to take priority over plot. There are loose ends. I wasn’t entirely sure by the end that key questions had been resolved. This is a postmodern detective novel as Burnet presents himself as the translator of another man’s work (a writer called Brunet, an anagram of the real author’s name). This is the first Gorski novel I’ve listened to rather than read in hard copy, and it was possibly a mistake. The narration is clear enough but the voicing of Gorski seemed way off - he has a kind of panto villain’s voice in the audiobook, which was off-putting though not terminally so. The meandering pace and wonderful descriptive writing probably lend themselves more to reading than to listening. There’s a major twist which I felt didn’t sit well with Gorski’s character as we’ve come to know it. And the central events of the novel weren’t particularly interesting. Loose ends are fine - but there are too many of them (mind you, it’s more than possible I missed the resolution of some of them). I’d like to read the novel, as I think I’d enjoy it more than the audiobook. That said, there is much of value in A Case of Matricide, and it’s far from a failure. It’s sad to think we’ve seen the last of Gorski and Saint-Louis but this is a worthy swan song - even if it falls slightly short of expectations.

Good luck, Mr Gorski

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The quality of the writing is the reason I’ve rated the overall score 5 star. Graeme brings the characters and town to life. I read the first 2 books in the series when released and I’m buying them as audiobooks now as this was definitely a more enjoyable experience.

Really Enjoyable listen

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