A Case of Matricide extract
Posted on May 8, 2025
To celebrate the paperback publication of A Case of Matricide by Graeme Macrae Burnet, we’re sharing an extract from the book.
A Case of Matricide, the conclusion to Graemeβs brilliant, critically acclaimed Gorski trilogy is an absolute must-read. But donβt worry if you havenβt read the previous titles. You can either pick them up to read first, or simply read any of the three in any order, as theyβre self-contained novels.
It is three oβclock on a November afternoon in the town of Saint- Louis, Haut-Rhin.
The florist, Madame Beck, gazes out the window of her shop on Rue des Trois Rois. The dayβs bouquets have been dispatched and she is unlikely to receive more than a handful of customers before the shop closes. Rue des Trois Rois is not a busy thoroughfare, but even the few passers-by barely register in her consciousness. She is thinking about the piece of fish she will later cook for her husband and whether she might close a little early in order to catch the greengrocerβs on Avenue de BaΜle.
A short distance away, a man named Ivan Baudoin climbs the five steps to the police station on Rue de Mulhouse. He is leading a dog on a length of thin yellow rope, which he passes behind his back from his right hand to his left as he pulls the door open and enters. Earlier, he came across the dog wandering on Avenue de la Marne, where he lives. Monsieur Baudoin is not a well-off individual and he intends to leave his name and address with the police, lest the dogβs owner be moved to offer a reward for his public-spirited act.
In the salon de theΜ on the corner of Avenue GeΜneΜral de Gaulle and Rue des Vosges, two ladies in their sixties discuss at great length the pastries they are eating. One of them, TheΜreΜse Lamartine, unconsciously moves her hand towards her ankle where her little dog would once have been sitting. The dog is long dead, but Madame Lamartine keenly feels its absence on a daily basis.
In an inconspicuous street, parallel to Rue des Vosges, an elderly woman sits propped up in bed against embroidered pillows, listening intently while her son moves around on the ground floor below.
The hairdresser Lemerre is sitting in his own barberβs chair leafing through the pages of one of the girlie magazines he supplies for customers to peruse while they wait. The pictures do not interest him much, but there is no other reading material to hand. In a few minutes, he will walk the short distance to the Restaurant de la Cloche to take his afternoon glass at the counter with Pasteur.
In the office of the HoΜtel Bertillon, the proprietor, Henri Virieu, is caused to raise his eyes from his copy of LβAlsace by the sound of a guest placing his key on the counter. The guest does not so much as glance in Monsieur Virieuβs direction, despite the fact that he is clearly visible behind the glass partition and the two men have previously exchanged some rudimentary pleasantries.
In the little park by the Protestant temple, a handful of pigeons peck at the dirt on the path between the benches. Around this time, a widow by the name of Agnes Vincent often passes half an hour watching the birds squabble over the breadcrumbs she scatters from a brown paper bag. Madame Vincent has not visited the park for three days. She is lying dead on the bathroom floor of the apartment on Rue du Temple that she shared with her husband until his death eight years ago. Her body will not be discovered for another week, when a neighbour notices an unpleasant odour in the corridor.
Through the window of CeΜlineβs, a ladieswear boutique overlooking the little park, the owner can be seen adjusting a display of lingerie too daring for the conservative womenfolk of the town.
On the corner of Rue de Huningue and Rue Alexandre Lauly, the Restaurant de la Cloche is experiencing the usual lull between lunchtime service and the end of the working day when the townβs tradespeople gather for a post-work snifter and to catch up on the dayβs gossip. At the counter, the proprietor, Pasteur, leans over his newspaper, displaying his bald crown to the restaurant. His wife, Marie, surveys the dining room with satisfaction. Everything is in its place. The only customer is a commercial traveller who attempts to disguise his alcoholism through diligent attention to his order book. At his feet are the two suitcases in which he carries his samples. Later, he will walk unsteadily along Rue de Mulhouse to the HoΜtel Bertillon, where he will spend the night.
At a table by the window, the waitress, AdeΜle, is smoking a cigarette. She has taken off her shoes and put her feet on the banquette. Marie would not tolerate this sort of behaviour from any other member of staff, but she indulges AdeΜle as she puts her in mind of her younger self.
In a large property on the outskirts of the town, a young widow, Lucette Barthelme, puts her ear to the door of her bedroom in order to ascertain the whereabouts of the housekeeper, this so that she can descend the stairs and leave the house without feeling the need to explain her movements. In the bedroom two doors along the landing, her teenage son, Raymond, sits on a straight- backed chair reading The 120 Days of Sodom.
It is three oβclock on a November afternoon in Saint-Louis.
A Case of Matricide is out now in paperback.
Born in Kilmarnock, Graeme Macrae Burnetβ―is among the UKβs leading contemporary novelists, having achieved both critical acclaim and best-selling status around the world. He lives in Glasgow, where he studied film and English literature. After teaching English overseas and working as a researcher in the television industry, he won a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award in 2013 and now writes full-time. He is best known for his dazzling Booker-shortlisted second novel,β―His Bloody Project,Β and his fourth novel,Β Case Study, which was longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize. Graeme is also the author of a trilogy of French-set detective novels:β―TheΒ Disappearance of AdeleΒ Bedeauβ―(2014), β―The Accident on the A35Β (2017), andΒ A Case of MatricideΒ (2024).
