Alex by Pierre Lemaitre

Woah! This is a creepy one! Working as a librarian, I get book recommendations from library users all day long and (shame upon me) I rarely take them. It's not because the patrons are habitually bad book-pickers. I just have an ongoing wish list that extends beyond the next three lifetimes as it sits today so a book has to be pretty compelling to jump to the top of that exalted list of "to-reads". Well, this one did. I burned through it in two (working) days and still can't stop thinking about it. It's translations like this that make me long for the ability to speak the native tongue of the author. If the translation is this good, can you imagine what it must be like in its natural form? But alas, I am sadly unilingual... Four stars and not five only because there was a certain tone to the writing that made the narrative voice seem removed or distant from the story. I can't tell if this is a product of the translation or if this is the author's style. It's not a bad thing but it disrupted the flow a little for me to be in a gripping part of this creep-festy tale and feel like it's being narrated by Ben Stein. (All my love to Ben Stein, there's nothing wrong with him either-I just don't think I could stay awake for long if he read me a story...) If you are a fan of mystery and/or suspense add this one to your must-reads, post haste. 

You will find an official plot line description at: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17316535-alex.