Murder on the Devil's Bridge

André Savignac, mayor of Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, is found hanged under a bridge, the Pont du Diable. Shepherd Franck Livarois discovered the body. Tests show the presence of scopolamine in the dead man’s blood, a drug that removes all power to resist. So the ‘suicide’ is a disguised murder. Is it connected to the threatening letters hidden in the mayor’s office? To investigate, Marina Fazergues, Captain of Detectives in Montpellier, and Philippe Charras (55), commander of the local gendarmerie, have to work together despite their very different methods. Marina questions the mayor’s son, Eric Savignac, a solitary, taciturn man, and senses something odd about his connection with his father. Their relationship seems to have been fraught. Could Eric have killed his father? Or does he have a secret that could be useful to the investigators? Eric mentions the ‘Lou Quen Langorio’ (‘those who resist’ in the local old French dialect), a farming community of nature conservation activists living near Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert. They were at war with the Savignacs, owners of the largest olive grove in the district, over the spraying of pesticides. André Savignac even came to blows with one of them: Franck Livarois, the shepherd who found the body hanging under the bridge! Pure coincidence? Maybe not… Franck already has a criminal record for assault on a police officer. And above all, the former veterinarian is familiar with scopolamine, which is used to treat spasms in certain animals… Soon, the murder of André Savignac is linked to the death of Nora Allouache, a teenager who hanged herself under the same bridge 30 years before. She was the daughter of Savignac’s neighbor, himself the owner of an olive grove competing with the mayor’s. Norma’s body is exhumed and an autopsy shows that, like André Savignac, she was already dead before she was hanged! So the two cases are connected and the Savignac murder could be revenge for Nora’s death. But who was the killer? And why wait 30 years? So a double inquiry begins, investigating two deaths in different periods. By solving the mystery of Nora Allouache’s murder, Captain Marina Fazergues and Colonel Charras hope to clear up the killing of André Savignac.