A review by siria
A King Alone by Jean Giono

3.0

In a mountain village in mid-19th-century France, there's a serial killer on the loose. The intrepid investigator Langlois tracks him down and finds himself changed by the pursuit. Jean Giono is capable of creating the most vivid, engaging depictions of people and place—I could really picture the hills and houses in which A King Alone takes place. This is a novel of great atmosphere. Could I, however, understand what was happening past about the mid-point of the book? Increasingly, no. This may well be a failure of comprehension on my part rather than an issue with Giono's writing, but I spent a lot of time towards the end of the book saying "Who's speaking?", "What's happening now?", and then blinking a lot at the conclusion.