Joël, aka 'The Rink' (because his bald patch is shiny enough to skate on), the unpopular owner of the only bar in town has been murdered. There are so many suspects, it's not so much a question of who did kill him as who didn't.
There's Magalie, the temperamental teenager obsessed with Paris Hilton; her troublemaker boyfriend, Tani; Tani's mother, Madame Levi; her unemployed, daytime-TV addicted husband; Yeznig, their younger son, who has learning difficulties but perfect memory recall; and newcomers Ali and Nadia, the Muslim twins struggling to fit in.
As the tension mounts and we're still none the wiser, the ending is as tragic as it is unexpected.
Publisher: Vintage Publishing
ISBN: 9781784707392
Number of pages: 160
Weight: 117 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 9 mm
The various monologues very cleverly paint the picture of a day in the life of this deprived society; [it] is very thoroughly and convincingly done... She writes with intelligence and sympathy, with humour and understanding - Allan Massie, Scotsman
Engaging... Along with the corpse himself, [the suspects] tell their stories in a series of monologues, and this is where Guène, with the help of an excellent translation by Ardizzone, really shines - Laura Wilson, Guardian
One of the most exciting novelists to emerge in recent years - Irish Times
Brilliantly paced... and utterly distinctive - Daniel Hahn, Independent
Guène is praised as a multicultural heroine. And to her credit, she turns stereotypes on their heads; the people of Making-Ends-Meet are an authentic community, whose humanity endears them to us, however gritty or kitsch their veneer - Times Literary Supplement
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