Nicolas Freeling was an excellent writer of detective fiction, particularly well-known for his Van der Walk series (recently re-adapted for television, very satisfactorily, and I hope there will be another series), and the books featuring the French detective Henri Castang, while less well-known, are equally good. They also provide a fascinating insight into France's investigative differences. Lady Macbeth brings together Henri Castang and Van der Walk's widow Arlette as a team investigating the disappearance of a woman in the Vosges mountains. I first read it many years ago, and appreciated its darkness and depth, and have very much enjoyed revisiting it.

This was not my cup of tea.

When Guy Lefebvre's wife Sibille goes missing after a massive argument, Arlette Davidson is suspicious. She's been gone for six months, hasn't touched her bank account, no word to her family - and yet Guy doesn't bat an eyelid. Arlette teams up with Henri Castang to investigate the case of Lefebvres.

The story is told through different characters, and while I normally find that builds anticipation for me (when will we get back to the character I like the best?), I felt apathetic here. The writer's prose felt so over-embellished to me - it seemed almost like he was trying to fit a caricature of what a writer should be, or fit as many obscure words into a book as possible. The character changing and often somewhat pretentious sentences made it hard for me to keep my attention and to actually piece together what was going on.

The book has a good premise, but its execution was not to my taste.

I really enjoyed reading this book! It was exciting, thrilling and mysterious all in one! Fantastic writing too.

Great story by Nicolas Freeling. Really fabulous story, that kept me turning the pages!! A thrilling plot, and characters.

Not really my cup of tea! I found it quite hard to follow and felt there were times the author was trying to hard with the literary allusions. , I usually enjoy books with a range of narrators but this didn’t really work for me. It is well written but lacks pace and it was hard to like any of the characters which for me is part of a good read but may not be the same for others. That said it did hold my interest and I would probably try another book by this author as this was the first Freeling and therefore first Castang that I have read.

I really wanted to like this book as I had previously read and enjoyed a few of the authors Van der Valk books. It proved to be quite a difficult task.The story of the search for a missing woman,run away ? dead ? murdered by her husband or by person or persons unknown? The story unfolds in interviews with various interested parties by Inspector Castang .A picture eventually unfolds of a pushy ambitious woman who who has driven her husband to become a successful landscape gardener and who was equally determined to make him a successful Painter. Hence the rather laboured attempt to paint the missing woman as Lady Macbeth.
The technique is quite confusing unless you really concentrate which can make it heavy going and the ending whilst totally unexpected is told in such a way I had to read the last few chapters twice before I completely understood.Not something I would have done if I hadn't received a free copy in exchange for a review.
Perhaps not the best of Freelings' Henri Castang books to read first ,I will read another sometime and hopefully find them more like his Van der Valk books than this one..An interesting experiment perhaps in the way its written but one that to my mind doesn't quite come off

For the first time ever, I considered abandoning a book that I intended to review. The novel comprises a series of supposed notes from interviews with various involved characters. These are chiefly:
- Henri Castang, an Assistant Commissaire of the French police
- Guy Lefebvre, a landscape gardener who is suspected of murdering his wife
- Arthur Davidson – second husband of Arlette Van der Valk, widow of the famous detective. Arlette is concerned about her friend, Sybille Lefebvre, and contacts the police.
I guess the “interview note” technique is supposed to heighten the authenticity as well as moving the plot along using various viewpoints. I’m afraid I found it confusing, until I realised the Davidsons are simply busybodies who (understandably) want the police to investigate Sybille’s disappearance.

The various characters keep trying to liken Sybille with Lady Macbeth: the driving influence behind events. I remained unconvinced and uninterested throughout the book. The individual sentences are well written, but I just found it boring. Not a book I can recommend.

Unfortunately I could not get it to this book and gave up when I got to about 25% read. I will try the book again at a latter stage. Can't wait to read the next book.

I have been on a bit of a ‘golden age’ crime bent recently so the offer of a free late Eighties detective novel from the good people at Crime Classics Advance Readers Club left me with mixed feelings – always glad to get a free book! But disappointed that it wasn’t something a little older.

However, the premise of the story sounded good and I liked the location and I have always enjoyed the titles provided to me by Crime Classics, so once I got over the disappointment that the book was only 38 years old(!) I settled in for a good read. But now I really was disappointed. The characters were not interesting and none seemed to speak with any distinctive voice. And what could have been a genuine mystery about the cause of the disappearance of ‘Lady Macbeth’ just left me feeling that I didn’t care whether the disappeared woman was dead or alive.

But the biggest problem with the novel was the structure: the novel is presented as a ‘factual case history’ written by an academic with a view to its use as a ‘source material for graduate students’, and as such is presented with each chapter being the story as it progresses as told by one of the protagonists with editorial notes as required by the supposed author… the construction of an entire narrative using the voices of all protagonists is a rare thing and is certainly a demonstration of the writer’s skill but although the objective is to present the feel of real people speaking in a natural way, much of each narrator’s story too frequently runs to near stream of consciousness with unorthodox punctuation and frequently bizarre grammar and so as a novel is difficult to read, feels overdrawn and overblown and indeed is often just plain boring. A novel way to structure a story indeed but for me a novel way to suck the interest out of that story.

The long and short of it is that because this was a free copy for review I made the effort to slog on to the end to allow my review to be fair, full and honest as I can make it. But honestly, had this not been from Crime Classics Advance Readers Club I would have packed it in about a quarter of the way through.

Maybe this is not the usual format of a Nicholas Freeling novel, maybe the rest of the Castang series read like ‘normal’ novels. I can only hope so, particularly as I have another Castang novel on my shelf to be read. But to be honest, it is doing a fine job of propping the other books up and I think I am not in a rush to put an end to its functional use. Maybe one day…

This was my first experience of Nicolas Freeling beyond the Van Der Valk TV series. My mum loved (really really loved!) the theme tune - we had the 7" single and it was always on so I have very fond memories of it even though I was too young to watch or understand the series. However I have since watched it on DVD and quite enjoyed it as a product of it's time.
When I saw that Mr Freeling had been selected as this month's classic crime author I was looking forward to reading some of the original source material however I think this was not a great place to start.
This is a Henri Castang novel, the detective he created after he killed off Van Der Valk and is, I suspect something of an experiment on the author's part.
The story, such as it is, concerns the disappearance of a woman after an argument between her and her husband in their car. He claims that he drove off and left her but she is not seen again arousing suspicion that he may have killed her. As there is no real evidence for this Castang is sent off on an unofficial basis to find out what he can.
So far so good but the style of the book is unusual. It is almost like a dossier of interviews and statements from a variety of different narrators and virtually all told in the first person. It feels like we are being told, here are the bits of the story - see what you can make of it. As such the narrative feels very disjointed and hard to follow. The male characters are also very misogynistic in places which is unnecessary to the story and pretty unpleasant.
There is a resolution of sorts at the end but by then I really didn't care. I had no sympathy for the woman who had disappeared, her husband or any of the other characters and just wanted it to be over. The solution is also something of a deus ex machina in that it wasn't flagged up even in the most obscure way as far as I could see.
I suspect that this particular book is not a great place to start with Freeling's work and I am almost tempted to read another, earlier novel to see if this really is as experimental as it seems or if this is his usual style. There certainly is a story in here but it requires a lot of work on the part of the reader to tease it out and there is very little of the puzzle element which I personally prefer, however if you like to have a whole variety of differing viewpoints and psychologies then this may be well worth your time.

I received this book from Crime Classics in order to give it an honest review. I had never read any Nicholas Freeling books previously but I did enjoy watching the 'Van Der Valk' detective television series which was shown many, many years ago. I found this book very difficult to read as it started with a murder which was solved very quickly and at around the same time a lanscape gardeners wife disappeared. I was unsure if the cases were linked as the detective in the case appeared to be being used as a private detective to look for the wife as well as his own police work. The detective travelled from Strasbourg all over Europe looking for evidence that the wife was actually alive or dead. The case eventually reaches a conclusion but a body is never seen so we are still left wondering.

An unusual book, not at all like any other book I have read. Frequent references to the classics. Intellectual and well written. Good characterizations. Not an easy book to read. Accurate comments on France and the French-I have lived in France for 33 years. An unexpected ending.

Lady Macbeth is this month’s Crime Classics review club book. Freeling wrote the Van der Valk books, of which I’ve read one: Because of the cats. Lady Macbeth is part of a series about Henri Castang, a French detective. I found it very difficult to read and totally confusing. The book begins with a straightforward murder case before moving on to the main story: a murder which may not have happened at all. An Englishman called Guy is married to Scottish Sibill. He’s an artist and garden designer, she’s the secretary and business brain. One day they are driving in the Vosges, lose their way and have a row. Sibill gets out of the car and walks away; Guy continues his drive. That’s his story. Someone who knows them gets suspicious about Sibill’s total disappearance and tips off the police. From there on, it’s chaos. There are multiple narrators, each giving his or her opinion on the case. They have a tendency to start talking about something else completely, without notice. It’s rather as though Castang had compiled a dossier containing all these papers and chucked the lot at the reader, saying, ‘Here, see if you can make a book out of this’. Clever and tricksy, I suppose, but I don’t like to have to work that hard when I’m reading and I’m thankful that the truth is out in the end, and is very surprising. I did like Castang and I’m sure Freeling wrote better books than this.

I was given this to review by Crime Classics. I've never read any Freeling before, and found this a dark, dream-like and quite misogynistic read. He has a style akin to Simenon in the detail of his character's lives, but the use of many different narrators and points of view make it a very non linear narrative of a missing person investigation, with the plot being very slowly revealed in clues and increments, and the explanation at the end was very unexpected and unusual.

This was my first Nicolas Freeling book and may not have been the best introduction to him. His main character was Van Der Valk but he got tired of him and killed him off. However Freeling gives a nod to the past by having Van Der Valk's widow Arlette (now Davidson) as one of the characters in this novel.

A husband and wife (Guy and Sibille) drive through the countryside, they have an argument and Sibille gets out and Guy drives away. Guy goes to visit Arlette Davidson who lived next door to them in France and when asked about Sibille says she has left him 6 months previously. Arlette gets suspicious as it is out of character so she goes to see Henri Castang to ask him to investigate. From there on out we get snippets of information from different perspectives. Guy is arrested and writes a diary, then he is let out as there is no proof he killed his wife which is what Arlette believes. Without giving too much away the story takes an unexpected turn and we do find out what exactly happened on that fateful night and the repercussions that come from Arlettes investigation.

Freeling has a very interesting and descriptive writing style which may not be everyones cup of tea. At times the story got confusing with the way it went back and forth and between characters. Although I enjoyed the descriptions I did find the story harder to stick with as we got further into it and Freeling seemed to throw in a few red herrings. The book did not seem to flow seamlessly and took some effort to finish. I did not enjoy the ending as although it closed off the mystery of Sibille it introduced some even more confusing anarchy plot.
If you are a Freeling fan you may enjoy this but for a first timer to this author I would not recommend starting with this particular book.

I very rarely give a bad review, but unfortunately this is book, for me, was pretty terrible. I had real trouble finishing it as I found the book contained a series of words with no really connection to a story.
I'm sure some people will find it very readable but not for me, written in the first person it was very wordy.

The storyline is not bad idea (a woman goes missing after a quarrel with her husband and her neighbours ask Henry Castang to look into her disappearance ) but due to the fact that every chapter is told by a different character makes it difficult to keep one focused. The whole story tended to wander. And I can't say that Henry Castang,the police inspector actually charmed me or kept my interest.

Nicolas Freeling, What are the Bugles Blowing For? 1975 (with bonus book)
ASIN: B06XHR7BXV
Nicolas Freeling, Lady Macbeth 1988
ASIN: B00MA6YNT6
Nicholas Blake, Malice Aforethought 1940
ASIN: B007NG941K

When crime novels are assiduously brought back into print, they often do very well, buttressed by the historical period in which they were written, which seems, with hindsight, beautifully imagined. As it should, of course. Nicholas Freeling tired of his first detective, Van der Valk (no Dutch reader ever thinks he’s anything but an Englishman), and then created Henri Castang, a French detective. Bugles was the second novel in this latter series, published in 1975, six years before Robert Badinter, Mitterand’s Justice Minister, persuaded the President to abolish the death penalty by executive order. The novel is set just before the last time a condemned person was executed: when they were still offering the condemned a stiff drink before the guillotine. So there’s a certain piquancy to the plot, and Henri Castang references crime writers he admired, from Martin Beck to Freeling’s own van der Valk. Castang is sitting in his office on a very hot summer day (his commissaire seems to have taken the day off) when a man rings and announces that he has murdered his wife, daughter, and their lover. The story unfolds slowly. What now seems striking is its strong resemblance to Maigret et l’affaire Saint-Fiacre, published in French in 1932 and filmed in 1959 starring Jean Gabin (I use:https://www.trussel.com/f_maig.htm). The novel was Maigret’s thirteenth outing, and it was much republished, in French and in English translation. (Freeling and Simenon recognized each other’s similar strengths.) The diversion in the character of the policemen is not that Maigret is a commissaire, and Castang is not, but that Maigret is returning to the village in which he grew up, while Castang—while also a provincial—has none of Maigret’s distance. The two murderers are both men of high social status and the kinds of connections that result from their status and education. In fact, this is one of Freeling’s most Simenon-ish book, which has the added pleasure of encouraging his readers to visit Saint-Fiacre as well, where I was most struck by the little boy who has already learned to lie and cheat.

Lady Macbeth (1988) is another, much later, Castang story—and another story. Castang has an intuition, based on a woman who reminds him of Shakespeare’s character. It is an even darker noir than Bugles. More demanding and complicated than the early novels, but just as admiring of Simenon, with the same ability to wait out interviewees. Despite what Castang (this is almost all in the first person, but there are half a dozen other narrators, one called ‘Arlette’, her second husband, and Castang’s former boss) says, his ‘Lady Macbeth’ has had to deal with a lot of blood, and ideas about Lady Macbeth reappear throughout, but are not Shakespeare’s tortured wife. A good book for a long winter’s day.

Nicholas Blake (better known as Cecil Day Lewis, father of Daniel and Tamasin and Poet Laureate) wrote twenty crime novels. Malice in Wonderland (1940) was the sixth. The novels are in period, and set in a variety of places. This one is a summer camp for grown-ups. Structurally, they tend to start with one or more characters not at all like Nigel Strangeways, his amateur sleuth, some of whom last the length of the mystery, while some do not. Lest it be thought this typical of the end of the between-the-wars ‘cosy’, we should remember that John LeCarre has used precisely this kind of opening, with similarly (but rather more serious) Byzantine twists and turns. However, I do recognize that this kind of book attracts its own kind of reader. Since I revere Day Lewis for his Virgil translations, if you are put off by this kind of novel, let me suggest you read those instead.

A Henri Castang mystery
What started out as a simple drive into the mountains turns ends up with one person missing. Sibille storms off after an argument with her husband Guy and is not seen again. Her husband seems relatively accepting of her disappearance and makes no attempt to find her.
Arlette is the widow of Van Der Valk and Sibille’s ex neighbour. Six months pass and certain something must have happened to Sibille she enlists the help of Henri Castang (a former colleague of her husband) to uncover the truth. An investigation is launched and their enquiries uncover something unexpected and dangerous.
This author was well known for the Van der Valk detective series and this is the 10th book in the Henri Castang series.
This story seemed more of a criminal dissection of people’s personalities and lives than a novel although thats not necessarily a bad thing, more a statement than a criticism. Also I felt I had to concentrate to keep up with the change in characters/chapters and backtracked a few times. This book did not appeal to me and that is no reflection on the author’s skill.

Guy is a very successful landscape architect. Sybille his wife is administrator cum excellence. It is she that does the nitty gritty in their business. An argument like any other, on a deserted road Sybille gets out of the car, storms off and is never seen again. Two people do not accept the story and file a report against Guy. It is Guy himself who is his own worst enemy. His laid back attitude, his telling of the facts in an extremely factual way, does not endear him to authorities or friends alike who do not know what to make of this.

The resolution was not for me, quite right. An unresolved ending may have been better but the writing, the story told in chapters by different people all added interest to a mystery.

Goodreads and Amazon review posted on 8/'9/2017. Posted on my blog 11/9/2017. Also linked to my FB page.