"Disappearance of Adele" by Graeme Macrae Burnet

An audio book, set in St Louis, Alsace.

Manfred (36) frequents a restaurant run by Pasteur and Marie where Adele (19) works. One night he sees her meeting a boy with a scooter. She disappears. Gorsky, a policeman, questions him. Manfred doesn't mention seeing Adele, not wanting to seem to be a voyeur.

Manfred goes to Strasburg sometimes, to a bar where he could pick up call-girls. He meets Alice in the building where they live. After their first date she invites him to have a night-cap. He doesn't take advantage.

Gorsky likes studying people, especially when they lie. He's married to Celine, with a daughter. Celine would like to move to a big city.

When a boy (reading Zola and the Existentialists), Manfred had met a girl, Juliette, in a yellow dress. They were immediately in love. He was brought up by grandparents. Her father was a lawyer. They met daily in a wood. On their last day, he tried touching her. He wasn't sure what to do. During sex he'd somehow straggled her. Gorsky had investigated. A vagrant had been sentenced, based on little evidence. The prosecution had done Gorsky's career no harm. We learn that Gorsky's father had a pawn shop. Sometimes he was a fence. He expected Gorsky to take over the shop. We learn how Gorsky met Celine.

Gorsky invites Manfred to correct his evidence. Gorsky tells Manfred that he gave Adele the creeps. After, Manfred tries to act normal. He thinks he's being watched. He thinks Alice might be spying on him.

Gorsky interviews the boy on the bike. He admitted to having cannibis. He said Adele was experienced. Gorsky realises that Manfred when a boy lived close to the woods. He tells Manfred he wants to interview him. Manfred flees to Strasburg, kills himself. Adele returns.

In a final chapter the translator writes that the novel was published in 1982. It didn't sell well until Chabrol made a film of it in 1988. The novel made the author unpopular in his home town of St Louis. He thought the film adaption made the hero look too much like him. At 38 he killed himself.

Other reviews

• motherbookerblog (As a reader, you have to work just as hard as Gorski to work out if Manfred is guilty or not.)
• Arnold Taylor (The way in which the author explores the minds of these two characters, particularly Bauman, is fascinating. He is never afraid to take the time to do this and never for one moment do we feel a need for more 'action'. However, when the action does come it is a complete surprise and we are left to contemplate the sadness of a life that never really got going, that was spent aimlessly and – except for one brief period – almost completely alone. This is a crime novel but it is so much more than that, and whilst it owes a lot to Simenon, it is in no way diminished by that comparison.)

"Case Study" by Graeme Macrae Burnet

An audio book

The narrator receives from an anonymous contact some journals which involve Braithwaite, a sixties follower of Laing who the narrator happens to be writing a biography of. The book alternates extracts from the journals with extracts from the biography.

In the biography sections we learn that Braithwaite's mother left when he was 10, and that his engineer father killed himself. He met Colin Wilson. They didn't get on. During a TV debate chaired by Joan Bakewell he stormed off. He saw an actor in a pub and wondered whether his persona in the pub is any more real than his on-stage ones. He read doppelganger novels, especially ones where the protagonist murders "the other". At Oxford he didn't know whether to hide his Northern accent or flaunt it. He was popular with girls. He met Laing. He wrote a book called "kill your self". He met Dirk Bogarde and they talks about authentic selves.

The journal is written by someone who's read Braithewaite's book - a sister of a patient of Braithwaite. In the case history he wrote about the patient, changing some of the details to preserve confidentiality. Other inaccuracies of the journal are of the type that convince the narrator it's not a prank.

The journal writer lives with her father. She had a sister, Veronica, who killed herself 2 years before while doing a maths PhD at Cambridge, when 26, having had some sessions with Braithwaite. She turns up at Braithwaite's as "Rebecca", pretending to be slightly deranged. When he's out of his office she checks his files. He catches her. She meets a man (a photographer) and arranges to meet him later still playing the Rebecca role.

She publishes a short story about an office worker like her having an affair with a married man. It's a one off. She continues having sessions with Braithwaite. He seems to use them as chat-up sessions.

Rebecca begins to acquire more independence, accusing the woman of obstructing her from having sex. The woman falls into depression, giving up her job.

Braithwaite was briefly imprisoned for having drugs and sex with a minor. His reputation never recovered. Eventually he hung himself.

At the end the author is invited to meet the anonymous contact. It's a 70ish woman. Rebecca.

Other reviews

• Nina Allan
• Marcie McCauley (In Case Study, Burnet presents two additional authors, whose documents are made available to readers. Most compelling are the private notebooks of a woman who is preoccupied by a young woman’s suicide; she believes that she has recognised the dead woman in a psychotherapist’s published work, despite that author’s having concealed the woman’s true identity. The author of the notebooks presents evidence of the psychotherapist’s misconduct and excerpts his publications; this complex structure allows questions about selfhood and identity, confusion and delusion, to proliferate. He not only presents different iterations of narratives, but different versions of authorship.)

"His Bloody Project" by Graeme Macrae Burnet (Contraband, 2015)

The frontispiece says "Edited and introduced by Graeme Macrae Burnet". In the Preface we're told that while researching into his family tree, Burnet came across Roderick Macrae's memoir, written in 1869. At the time, we're told, people suspected that it might be a forgery - how could a rustic 17 year old have written it? We're told that the book contains police statements, post-mortem reports, psychiatric reports and newspaper articles. We're warned of contradictions. There's a map.

It all seems rather slow to me. So what if the narrators were unreliable? So what if it's based on documented events? The characters are largely caricatures, and the write-up of the trial (verbatim dialogues) is tedious. The passivity that a few characters expressed in the face of fate could have been exploited more. The one glimmer of hope for the novel was the twist introduced by Mr Thompson about the motive of the accused and the accused's subsequent deception.

Other reviews

• Justine Jordan
• Jake Kerridge