The Inheritors

Hannelore CAYRE

Chapters (17)

Cover Page

PRAISE FOR THE INHERITORS

‘[The Inheritors] has everything we love about [Hannelore Cayre]; damaged but memorable characters, sharp language, ferocious humour, an undercurrent of political rage, a punchy narrative and lashings of subversion.’ —Lire

‘As corrosive as ever, the author of The Godmother unleashes her caustic eloquence in a hilariously black tale that mocks the self-perpetuation of the élite.’ —Paris Match

‘Social justice fuels the noir works of this author and lawyer: the little guys win, the powerful lose. So it was in The Godmother, in 2017, and so it is again, now more than ever, in The Inheritors.’ —Le Monde

‘[Cayre’s] language takes your breath away, as the author so often does with her rapid-fire style.’ —Causette

‘A work of noir fiction worth its weight in gold.’ —Le Journal de Montréal

‘The author has a knack for producing one irresistibly eccentric character after another.’ —Les Echos Week-end

‘A funny, irreverent and exhilarating novel, in the purest tradition of French anarchistic crime novels.’ —Femme Actuelle Senior

‘A fabulous work of crime fiction – very funny and very politically incorrect – masterfully drawn by a specialist in the genre.’ —Bernard Poirette, Europe 1 podcast

HANNELORE CAYRE is a French writer, director and criminal lawyer. Her most recent work, The Godmother, won the European Crime Fiction Prize and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière and has been shortlisted for a Crime Writers’ Association Dagger award. The Godmother was also featured on The New York Times’ ‘100 Notable Books of 2019’ list and has been made into a major film starring Isabelle Huppert.

STEPHANIE SMEE left a career in law to work as a literary translator. Recent publications include the translations of Hannelore Cayre’s The Godmother, and Françoise Frenkel’s rediscovered World War II memoir No Place to Lay One’s Head, which was awarded the JQ–Wingate Prize. Her translation of Joseph Ponthus’ prize-winning work, On the Line, is forthcoming.

Book club notes are available for The Inheritors from blackincbooks.com.au

Title Page

Copyright

Published by Black Inc.,

an imprint of Schwartz Books Pty Ltd

Level 1, 221 Drummond Street

Carlton VIC 3053, Australia

[email protected]

Originally published in France as Richesse Oblige in 2020

Hannelore Cayre asserts her right to be known as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior consent of the publishers.

9781760642662 (paperback)

9781743821527 (ebook)

Cover design by Akiko Chan

Text design and typesetting by Akiko Chan

Cover image: Martinedoucet/iStock

It was in the moonless countryside, pitch black, that I saw it for the first time, the green fluorescent rabbit, vivid green in its abandoned field, living its life, oblivious to its own peculiarity, in a burning halo, like when you close your eyes to somebody’s memory, a signal in the black night, a small dot.