The Hidden Mysteries Brigade

The Hidden Mysteries Brigade
by Eric Fouassier

An exciting hunt for the murderer through the streets of Paris in 1830

Autumn of 1830. In a Paris feverish and still shocked by the revolutionary days of July, evil takes on new forms, and the Vicar embodies the most terrifying of them: mysterious and bloodthirsty, he uses scientific progress and his esoteric knowledge to perpetrate their crimes and then get lost in the shadows of a turbulent city.

To combat this new type of criminals, the Occult Mysteries Brigade has just been created, a special department of the Sûreté directed by the young inspector Valentin Verne. With an angelic face and solitary character, Valentin is severe and implacable, and his knowledge of chemistry and medicine, as well as his interest in the occult and the irrational, make him the ideal man to hunt down these modern criminals. .

But who is Valentin really after? Who is hiding behind the Vicar’s mask? Does this have any connection with the strange suicide of the dissolute heir of one of the most illustrious families in France? What has become of Damien, an orphan who seems to have been swallowed by the earth?

In the wake of great detectives like Vidocq and Auguste Dupin, Paris will witness Valentin Verne’s tireless fight against evil.

Eric Fouassier, born in 1963 in Saint-Maur-des-Fosées, is a famous French writer. He is the author of several detective and historical novel series, such as Sans peur et sans reproche, Commandant Gaspard Cloux and Les Francs Royaumes; His other novels are Le Traducteur, L’Effet Nocebo and Et puis le silence. In addition, he is a doctor in Law and Pharmacy and a university professor, as well as a knight of the Legion of Honor.

His work The Brigade of Hidden Mysteries, the first in a series of novels somewhere between noir and historical novel starring Inspector Valentin Verne, has earned him the prestigious 2021 Maison de la Presse Award and has become one of the great phenomena of contemporary French literature, with millions of copies sold in the French country and notable international success.