A man was convicted of murder. A century later, the victim appears in a photograph taken three days after his death.
In 1924, Gildas Le Bihan vanished from Traon-Veur, a remote manor on the storm-lashed coast of Brittany.
His body was never found. Yet Armand Kergoat was convicted of murdering him for money and condemned to the penal colony, where he died. For the next hundred years, his descendants carried the shame of his name.
Then a storm breaks open a sealed wall at Traon-Veur.
Inside is a rusted tin box containing a punched train ticket, a half-burnt deed, a lock of hair-and a photograph dated 17 October 1924.
The man in the photograph is Gildas Le Bihan.
Alive.
Three days after the night on which the court declared him murdered.
For Maëlle Kergoat, gravely ill and running out of time, the discovery can mean only one thing: her grandfather was innocent. She asks independent cold-case investigator Camille Renaud to prove it before she dies.
But Camille does not follow causes. She follows contradictions.
The original witness statement was altered. The tides do not support the prosecution's account. A woman and child were removed from the records. And someone in the present appears determined to learn what Camille discovers before she can make it public.
As the investigation moves between the hidden lives of 1924 and the families still divided by them, every new piece of evidence changes the meaning of the last. Camille begins to realise that a false trial does not necessarily mean an innocent man-and that the truth buried inside Traon-Veur may destroy the comforting stories told by both sides.
Because someone lied about when Gildas Le Bihan died.
Someone lied about why he died.
And an entire community chose to remember the wrong crime.
Atmospheric, intricately plotted and deeply human, Three Days After His Death is a dual-timeline historical mystery about a century-old cold case, an erased child, inherited guilt and the terrible cost of a useful lie.
Perfect for readers who enjoy intelligent investigations, evocative French settings, buried family secrets and morally complex mysteries in which the truth matters more than a simple verdict.
A complete, self-contained mystery featuring investigator Camille Renaud.
