num_pages: 208
description: A bestseller in France and winner of the Prix Renaudot, By a Slow River is a mesmerizing and atmospheric tale of three mysterious deaths in an oddly isolated French village during World War I.The placid daily life of a small town near the front seems impervious to the nearby pounding of artillery fire and the parade of wounded strangers passing through its streets. But the illusion of calm is soon shattered by the deaths of three innocents–the charming new schoolmistress who captures every male heart only to kill herself; an angelic ten-year-old girl who is found strangled; and a local policeman’s cherished wife, who dies alone in labor while her husband is hunting the murderer. Twenty years later, the policeman still struggles to make sense of these tragedies, a struggle that both torments and sustains him. But excavating the town's secret history will bring neither peace to him nor justice to the wicked.
language: English
title: By a Slow River
titlecomplete: By a Slow River
genres: France, Roman, Historical, Mystery, War, Historical Fiction, Literature, French Literature, Fiction, Crime
ratings_count: 4795
places: France
awards: awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Martin Beck Award, awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: Prix Renaudot, awardedAt: 1136102400000
name: Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
category: Longlist, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Grand Prix des lectrices de Elle
category: roman, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Premi Llibreter de narrativa, awardedAt: 1262332800000
name: Metų verstinė knyga
publisher: Anchor