Painkiller

Painkiller is a whodunnit set on the south coast of England.
Sarah is on holiday with her brother and his family
when a woman’s body is washed up on the beach.

Joining the gathering crowd, Sarah sees the woman’s face.
It is Yvonne, her brother’s wife, the children’s mother.
Did she fall overboard? Was she drunk? Was it suicide?
Or, was she killed?

Whilst trying to shield her brother’s adolescant children, she realises
that, for everyone’s sake, she must find out what really happened.

I’ve long been an admirer of Georges Simenon (both his Maigret novels and the roman dur).
A murder story is a very demanding challenge. The investigation reveals the past,
so two tales are being told, in a game between storyteller and reader.

In all Simenon wrote some 400 novels, some in a week,
and claimed to have bedded 10,000 women (including Josephine Baker).
I can’t compete with any of that,
but Painkiller is my homage to his psychologically truthful story-telling.