Petite mort by Alexandra Schwartzbrod

Petite mort by Alexandra Schwartzbrod

I long believed that I disliked sex. The only thing I cared for was love. Pleasure was but one aspect of it. I was posted to the East twenty eight days before the war started, and my life was turned upside down... These are the first lines of a mysterious diary posted to Viviane together with a small flask containing an unknown perfume - a mix of amber and almond scents. Where does this text come from? Why send it to her? Who is the woman who reveals herself so wilfully, recounting her erotic adventures without regard to propriety? Is she connected to the story of the drowned women recently found by one of the locks of the Ourcq canal, in front of the building where Viviane works? A psychologist specialised in addiction, Viviane thus becomes absorbed in an inquest that leads her far away from the banks of the canal, and finds herself crossing all borders, including that of sex.
With this original thriller, the author of the Petite mort mixes psychological and erotic suspense to draw us in her sensual and terrifying universe.

Alexandra Schwartzbrod is a journalist for Lib ration. In 2003, she published Balagan which was awarded the SNCF prize. Petite mort is her third novel.