Sous La Manche

Under The Channel On either side of the channel, in London and Paris, live two men who appear to differ in every way except for a passing physical resemblance. One is a flirtatious Scottish estate agent who is still looking very good at the age of forty-five. The other a lieutenant in the French police force, married with two children and tired with life even though he is only forty. The first is murdered in mysterious circumstances on a train taking him from London to Paris. The second is in charge of investigating his murder.
In trying to establish the victim's identity and a motive for the crime, the lieutenant gradually comes to question his own existence in a play of mirrors where fascination is tempered with repulsion. In a London shaken by the financial crisis, the lieutenant's successive encounters show him that he is not who he thought he was.
Gilles Pétel was born and raised in Dunkirk. After studying philosophy at the université de Nice, he spent several years abroad teaching. In 1996 his first novel, Le Métier dans le sang, was published by Fayard. This was followed by other novels, Le Mur de Broadway (Fayard, 1998), Le Recensement (Stock, 2000) and La Déposition (Stock, 2002), as well as short stories, and a play Le Monologue de la femme ivre de bonheur staged by the artists group "Lilas en scène" in December 2009.