The author is a German, Jörg Bong, who lives between his country and Brittany.
This is the sixth volume in „A Brittany Mystery“ series featuring Commissaire Georges Dupin. The style, the setting in Brittany and the central characters reflect the author's sympathy for this region. The protagonist has been "banished" from Paris to this area at the end of the earth (finis terrae). His girlfriend Claire, a heart specialist, has moved from Paris to a hospital in Brittany.
The action takes place on the "Côte de Granit Rose", in Trégastel, where Georges and Claire are enjoying a two-week vacation: sun, beach and rest. For the inspector, the inactivity is unbearable, but his colleagues in his office and Claire have conspired to make him do nothing and not worry. A tourist staying at the same hotel mysteriously disappears, there is an attack on a local deputy, who is at odds with the local farmers, shortly after a corpse appears in a granite cellar, ...
The inspector sets out to investigate behind the back of the commissioner of Lannion, the people in his office ... and Claire. At the same time, Claire is busy, in long phone calls, giving instructions for the operations in her hospital. A new corpse appears and there is the theft of a statue in a local hermitage.
The whole narrative is mixed with descriptions of local gastronomic specialties, unique landscapes, hotels and tourist attractions: the author continues his homage to Brittany.
From the moral point of view, the author distinguishes moral and immoral behaviors and makes clear the ethical level of the characters. The inspector and his friend go on vacation together, as if they were husband and wife, and at the end of the novel they decide to live together. There are no inconvenient descriptions.