Title: Le Train de Venise
First published: 1974
Description: "Pourquoi toute l'image ̌tait-elle centře sur sa fille ? Cela le g̊nait un peu, ou plut̥t c'est apr̈s surtout qu'il y pensa, une fois le train en marche. Et encore ne fut-ce, en řaliť, qu'une impression fugace, ňe au rythme du wagon et aussit̥t absorb̌e par le paysage. Pourquoi Joše et non sa femme ou son jeune fils, alors qu'ils ̌taient group̌s tous les trois dans la moiteur du soleil ? Peut-̊tre parce que la silhouette de sa fille, dans une gare, debout devant un train en partance, ̌tait plus incongrue ? Elle avait douze ans; elle ̌tait grande et mince, les jambes et les bras encore gr̊les, et les bains de mer, le soleil de la plage avaient donň ̉ses cheveux blonds des reflets argenťs"--Page 4 of cover.

A casual meeting with a mysterious man on a train from Venice leads Georges Justin Calmar into a series of serious surprises that cause him to lose control over his own life. The man asks Calmar to deliver a package to a person in Paris for him. But when Calmar gets to the recipent's apartment, he finds her dead, and panics. While searching newspapers for clues to his situation, he finds out that the man who gave him the package has been murdered as well. Calmar, now frantic and thinking he will be the next victim, looks into the package and finds a fortune in various currencies. Attempting to hide his windfall from his wife and coworkers, Calmar becomes increasingly paranoid.
Subjects: French Detective and mystery stories, Fiction, Anxiety, France, fiction, Maigret, jules (fictitious character), fiction, Paris (france), fiction, Continental european fiction (fictional works by one author), Fiction, mystery & detective, police procedural, Detective and mystery stories
Places: Paris, Paris (France), France