The Cevennes murders, tome 1 : A garden for the departed

For Noel Tavares the tiny village in the Cevennes that he has been sent to for a year is a world away from what he has always known. Its isolation and tranquillity make it the ideal place to forget and be forgotten. But fate decides otherwise. Aided by Marmalade, a large ginger tabby cat who has accompanied him into exile, Noel finds himself unearthing secrets and plunging the village into a past that the years have buried.

A Garden for the Departed was first published in French in 2007 under the title Petits meurtres au jardin, and received the Regional Vallée-Livres prize. It is the first volume of what turned out to be a trilogy that takes Noel and Marmalade to the end of their year's stay.