#55: The Executioner Weeps by Frederic Dard

 A painter accidentally knocks down a mysterious woman carrying a violin along a desolate road in Spain; when she awakens with amnesia, they form an unhealthy attachment in Frederic Dard's The Executioner Weeps.

The artist becomes obsessed with the young woman, and doggedly ignores signs that maybe all was not well in her previous life; a quick trip back to France to check on clues reveals a tragic truth that leads to a downbeat ending.

Dard was a highly prolific author of French noir, and this entry was an award winner when it came out in the late 1950s.  This is a recent translation by the imprint Pushkin Vertigo.

The French noir novels I have sampled overall have a tendency to be short, very dark, and unpleasant, and I would say this first dip into Dard's work fits the criteria.

That being said, I enjoy Dard's writing quite a bit and would look for more of his lengthy bibliography.

#7: Resurrection Bay by Emma Viskic

A private investigator's cop friend is murdered, and suspected of being crooked, which the investigator sets out to disprove at great personal peril in Emma Viskic's Resurrection Bay.

Viskic's Australian setting, and deaf protagonist, elevates a standard but pretty fast-moving crime novel.  A genuinely surprising ending involving a slew of deaths and one major betrayal adds value.

Resurrection Bay is the first in a series featuring Caleb Zelic, a popular run of novels in Australia which are just making it over to the States.  I liked it well enough to want to know what happens to Zelic next.

I checked this out from the Morrisson-Reeves Library in Richmond, Indiana and read it quickly.

#46: The Tokyo Zodiac Murders by Soji Shimada

 An artist is murdered in his studio, and later his family is dismembered and scattered across Japan; years later, two quirky friends take on this long-unsolved mystery in Soji Shimada's The Tokyo Zodiac Murders.

Despite its sometimes shocking trappings, including gruesome murders and grisly astrology rituals, at its heart Shimada has written a classic locked-room mystery.  Shimada even interjects himself twice into the story, telling the reader that all the clues to solve the mystery have been given out and invites the reader to try and solve it before the end.

The Tokyo Zodiac Murders is an offbeat blend of cozy murder mystery and gory violence, an unusual read.

This release is from the Pushkin Vertigo imprint, which has been dedicated to bringing back classic genre novels from around the world.  I found this at the famous Seattle Mystery Bookshop and read it on a flight back from Seattle.

#44: Vertigo by Boileau-Narcejac

A suspicious husband asks his friend to trail his melancholy wife; when the friend becomes obsessed, and that obsession seems to lead to madness, the plot twists and turns and twists again in Vertigo.

Boileau-Narcejac was Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, whose writing collaboration produced a string of classics, including this one that Alfred Hitchcock turned into one of his iconic films.

Even if you know the movie's beats, this is a rock-solid psychological noir, brought back into print by the Pushkin Vertigo imprint that features genre novels from around the world.

Recommended for fans of the film, or noir fans in general.

I bought this at Sandmeyer's Bookstore in downtown Chicago and read it on a long flight to Seattle.