71. Death from the Woods by Brigitte Aubert

While on vacation in Ireland with her boyfriend, Elise Andrioli is severely injured when a car bomb goes off, killing her partner and five others. When Elise wakes up, she is blind, mute, and is confined to life in a wheelchair due to becoming a quadriplegic. Back home in the Paris suburbs, she is cared for by a family friend and is leading a quiet life until one day outside a supermarket, a young girl, Virginie, whispers in Elise’s ear that she has witnessed a murder. The region has had young boys go missing into local woods, and later be found dead and mutilated. Virginie calls the killer, whom she apparently knows but is afraid to expose, “Death from the Woods”, and enlists Elise to help find the killer.

A taut cat and mouse type thriller, this suspenseful story has one of the most unique main characters I have ever read about. Even though she has extreme limitations due to her physical impairments, Elise uses her intelligence, memory, hearing, and wry sense of humor to piece this mystery together. The translation from French is handled fairly well, and although the end gets a little complex and far fetched, this overall is a unique foreign mystery that builds tension and atmospheric suspense well. The author, Aubert, won the 1997 Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere for this title.