Description

A policeman on a mission of mercy is shot dead at point-blank range by a sweet old granny on a frosty morning. The neighbourhood, Paris’s bubbling Belleville quarter, is already in uproar because half a dozen other grannies have been found with their shrivelled throats slit. Into this tense situation stumbles Benjamin Malaussene with an overly complicated life that includes his voluptuous red-haired girlfriend, Julie, and his smelly epileptic dog, Julius. Maniacally inventive – some have called it deranged – Pennac’s creations in The Fairy Gunmother have achieved cult status all over Europe.

Publisher Review

A crime novel in a class of its own, you'll laugh till you cry -- Bertrand Audusse * Le Monde * There is only profit and pleasure to be had in this wise, good-humoured, funny book -- David Coward * Times Literary Supplement * Already a bestseller in its native country, it deserves to be one here if there's any justice in the world of crime -- Maxim Jakubowski * Time Out * These are...classic page-turners, in which the loyalty and decency of ordinary (and not so ordinary) people contrive to vanquish villains and tyrants -- Ruth Morse * Times Literary Supplement *