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Napoleonic Murders #1
Les proies de l'officier
Juin 1812, Napoléon lance 400 000 hommes à la conquête de la Russie. Mais sur la route de Moscou, entre les batailles d'Ostrowno et de la Moskova, un officier assassine des femmes avec une sauvagerie inouïe. Le prince Eugène de Beauharnais, conscient des répercussions qu'une telle affaire pourrait avoir, charge Quentin Margont de suivre, dans le plus grand secret, cette piste sanglante... Tandis que commence la marche épuisante de l'armée napoléonienne à travers la plaine russe, ce jeune capitaine humaniste et idéaliste, n'a pas le choix : les ordres sont les ordres et il doit retrouver le coupable ou ce sera le peloton d'exécution...
" Un roman à découvrir d'urgence où, à côté des cosaques, de la neige et des batailles, on découvre qu'au-delà de la guerre, il y a des crimes encore plus abjects. "
Nicolas Sevaux, Le Parisien
" Un roman à découvrir d'urgence où, à côté des cosaques, de la neige et des batailles, on découvre qu'au-delà de la guerre, il y a des crimes encore plus abjects. "
Nicolas Sevaux, Le Parisien
432 pages, Paperback
First published March 3, 2005
About the author
Armand Cabasson
37 books1 followerArmand Cabasson is a psychiatrist and novelist working in the north of France.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
December 2, 2013
I'm going against the crowd in my rating for this book. I loved it. Honestly, I didn't think a book about the Napoleonic invasion of Russia would float my boat (despite my history appreciation), but it did. I loved the mix of military history and murder mystery. I think that the well-done characterization was a deciding factor in gaining my interest. I found the fact that the main characters are part of Napoleon's Army, thus, sort of on the bad guy side, and I rooted for them to survive what history tells me was a devastating campaign added to my high rating. I'm sure that some reviewers could find more things to pick apart in this book, but I found it fascinating. I also give points for the fact that it was very coherent, considering it was translated from French to English. Not a quick read by any means, but a fulfilling one.
Reviewed for Affaire de Coeur Magazine. http://affairedecoeur.com.
Reviewed for Affaire de Coeur Magazine. http://affairedecoeur.com.
June 6, 2016
Great detective novel, against the backdrop of Napoleon's Russian campaign. The battle scenes and the description of the fire of Moscow are quite a treat.
February 2, 2026
The Officer’s Prey
I’ve been a fan of Napoleonic Wars fiction ever since Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novels hooked me, so when I stumbled across Armand Cabasson’s Napoleonic Murder series, it seemed like a natural next read especially after enjoying Ben Kane’s Napoleon’s Spy last year. These books had been sitting on my shelf for a while, and I almost passed them on unread. Glad I didn’t.
To be clear, this isn’t Cornwell. It lacks that level of historical detail and military precision, but it scratches a similar itch, and it does something a little different that I found interesting. Rather than a straightforward military adventure, it reads more like a murder mystery that just happens to be set during the Napoleonic Wars. That’s not a bad thing it’s actually what sets it apart but it does mean the book sits in an awkward middle ground. It’s not quite as gripping as a dedicated crime novel, and it’s not quite as immersive as the best military historical fiction.
Captain Quentin Margont is a decent lead. A young idealist swept up in Napoleon’s army, he’s given the task of hunting down a killer within the ranks. He’s compelling enough to carry the story, but he lacks the roguish brilliance of a Sharpe or the razor sharp deduction of a classic literary detective. He’s more of an everyman thrust into an extraordinary situation, which works, but it does mean the mystery lacks a certain punch.
I did notice what felt like some roughness in the translation a few moments where the narrative seemed to jump suddenly, as though something had been lost or condensed in moving from French to English. Hard to say for certain without reading the original, but it occasionally pulled me out of the flow.
Where Cabasson does shine is in his unflinching portrayal of life in the Grande Armée, particularly during the brutal retreat from Moscow in 1812. There’s no glorification here no swelling sense of national pride. The French troops come across as a ragged, disillusioned bunch, and that honesty gives the book a gritty authenticity that stuck with me.
Ultimately, The Officer’s Prey is an enjoyable read, but one that may leave you a little disappointed in its execution and conclusion. If you’re looking for something to tide you over between Cornwell novels, it’s worth a go just temper your expectations.
I’ve been a fan of Napoleonic Wars fiction ever since Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novels hooked me, so when I stumbled across Armand Cabasson’s Napoleonic Murder series, it seemed like a natural next read especially after enjoying Ben Kane’s Napoleon’s Spy last year. These books had been sitting on my shelf for a while, and I almost passed them on unread. Glad I didn’t.
To be clear, this isn’t Cornwell. It lacks that level of historical detail and military precision, but it scratches a similar itch, and it does something a little different that I found interesting. Rather than a straightforward military adventure, it reads more like a murder mystery that just happens to be set during the Napoleonic Wars. That’s not a bad thing it’s actually what sets it apart but it does mean the book sits in an awkward middle ground. It’s not quite as gripping as a dedicated crime novel, and it’s not quite as immersive as the best military historical fiction.
Captain Quentin Margont is a decent lead. A young idealist swept up in Napoleon’s army, he’s given the task of hunting down a killer within the ranks. He’s compelling enough to carry the story, but he lacks the roguish brilliance of a Sharpe or the razor sharp deduction of a classic literary detective. He’s more of an everyman thrust into an extraordinary situation, which works, but it does mean the mystery lacks a certain punch.
I did notice what felt like some roughness in the translation a few moments where the narrative seemed to jump suddenly, as though something had been lost or condensed in moving from French to English. Hard to say for certain without reading the original, but it occasionally pulled me out of the flow.
Where Cabasson does shine is in his unflinching portrayal of life in the Grande Armée, particularly during the brutal retreat from Moscow in 1812. There’s no glorification here no swelling sense of national pride. The French troops come across as a ragged, disillusioned bunch, and that honesty gives the book a gritty authenticity that stuck with me.
Ultimately, The Officer’s Prey is an enjoyable read, but one that may leave you a little disappointed in its execution and conclusion. If you’re looking for something to tide you over between Cornwell novels, it’s worth a go just temper your expectations.
January 4, 2022
3,5.
J'ai été happé par les 100 premières pages de ce roman. On y découvrait une armée napoléonienne républicaine et pleine de rêves, partie à la conquête de la Russie ; une période historique de la France que je ne connais finalement que trop peu. L'enquête avec la découverte de la scène de crime démarrait sur les chapeaux de roue avec le capitaine Margont à sa tête. Le milieu du récit était plutôt lent mais j'y ai appris de nombreuses choses sur la vie pendant une campagne et à bien y réfléchir, l'histoire était tout de même bien rythmée. Le véritable souci que j'ai eu avec ce roman c'est le peu de place que prend l'enquête. "Les proies de l'officier" c'est en fait plus un récit de guerre qu'un polar et je ne m'y attendais pas. Même la conclusion fut un peu décevante tant par la forme que par le fond…
C'est tout de même un roman que j'ai lu en seulement deux jours, me sortant d'une mini panne de lecture. Je ne me suis pas du tout attachée aux personnages mais je ne pense pas que ce fut le but de l'auteur. Il faut plutôt voir cette œuvre comme une fresque historique très intéressante au demeurant.
J'ai été happé par les 100 premières pages de ce roman. On y découvrait une armée napoléonienne républicaine et pleine de rêves, partie à la conquête de la Russie ; une période historique de la France que je ne connais finalement que trop peu. L'enquête avec la découverte de la scène de crime démarrait sur les chapeaux de roue avec le capitaine Margont à sa tête. Le milieu du récit était plutôt lent mais j'y ai appris de nombreuses choses sur la vie pendant une campagne et à bien y réfléchir, l'histoire était tout de même bien rythmée. Le véritable souci que j'ai eu avec ce roman c'est le peu de place que prend l'enquête. "Les proies de l'officier" c'est en fait plus un récit de guerre qu'un polar et je ne m'y attendais pas. Même la conclusion fut un peu décevante tant par la forme que par le fond…
C'est tout de même un roman que j'ai lu en seulement deux jours, me sortant d'une mini panne de lecture. Je ne me suis pas du tout attachée aux personnages mais je ne pense pas que ce fut le but de l'auteur. Il faut plutôt voir cette œuvre comme une fresque historique très intéressante au demeurant.
December 15, 2020
Actually pretty good. It's nice to get to read a perspective of the Napoleonic Wars from the French side for a change. I didn't quite understand the bit why Margont couldn't just tell Eugene who he suspected the killer was. It was more of a war action story than a detective novel, but that was ok. The battle scenes were very well done and there were lots a characters involved although you don't the same sense of involvement as you would with Bernard Conwell Richard Sharpe story. None the less, it was an enjoyable read with a suitable but somewhat subdued ending.
November 14, 2017
The military sequences were well-drawn but zero character development and meandering plot.
September 3, 2018
A wonderful historical novel with a mystery twist. I loved it.
April 10, 2026
Passionnante description à la première personne de la campagne de Russie, l'intrigue policière passe au second plan.
March 16, 2017
While this book included a mystery I think the review of the Sunday Telegraph is more accurate calling The Officer's Prey "a splendid war epic" as I felt the mystery plot secondary to the war story.
October 7, 2016
I enjoyed this, though it is not a murder/mystery book but a story of the failed Napoleonic Russia campaign with a shallow murder story sub-plot.
February 17, 2017
History&mystery in the skillful hands of French author offer an interesting read about the wolf in the human skin - amongst the real wolves of Russian winter.
It´s 1812 and Napoleon is on its top as a ruler in Europe. To defeat England and to support his pride, he aims for Russian throne first. But Russia is huge, it´s people are decided to fight back and the winters there are far more cruel than Frenchmen know.
And there is also a human predator amongst the French soldiers, who is torturing and killing women. Of course, what is one body or more amongs the hundreds killed in war? But there are political reasons not to disturb the local citizens, so Captain Quentin Margont is put in charge of resolving the mystery. And there are more murders...and more deaths as this invasion is taking its toll. But Captain Margont is decided to catch the killer.
This book is both a historical trip and a psychological portrait of a psychologically disturbed killer. The author is both a Napoleonic time fan and a psychiatrist, so he is more than able to present both the time frame and the mind of a disturbed man.
As for the historical aspect, the book is fascinating in its look to the beginning of the fall of an empire. The author does not concentrate on the Napoleon himself, more on the individuals fighting in his army and following different motivations to be there.
Take Quentin Margont, who is still an idealist hoping to spread the ideas of freedom to the Russian muzhiks. But he is also a kind man and typical Frenchman of a smart mind and less than obedient nature - so a very good choice for a sleuth! His friends are not less human (if a bit less sympathetic in their fame and money hunt).
The mystery is less present (the book reads more like a military book with a mystery than a mystery set in the military environment), but it is an interesting mind game, a bit similar to a game of chess. Attack, counterattack, check mate - and finally? The players are intelligent and the ending is a real cliffhanger.
Interesting novel. I will read the second volume for sure.
It´s 1812 and Napoleon is on its top as a ruler in Europe. To defeat England and to support his pride, he aims for Russian throne first. But Russia is huge, it´s people are decided to fight back and the winters there are far more cruel than Frenchmen know.
And there is also a human predator amongst the French soldiers, who is torturing and killing women. Of course, what is one body or more amongs the hundreds killed in war? But there are political reasons not to disturb the local citizens, so Captain Quentin Margont is put in charge of resolving the mystery. And there are more murders...and more deaths as this invasion is taking its toll. But Captain Margont is decided to catch the killer.
This book is both a historical trip and a psychological portrait of a psychologically disturbed killer. The author is both a Napoleonic time fan and a psychiatrist, so he is more than able to present both the time frame and the mind of a disturbed man.
As for the historical aspect, the book is fascinating in its look to the beginning of the fall of an empire. The author does not concentrate on the Napoleon himself, more on the individuals fighting in his army and following different motivations to be there.
Take Quentin Margont, who is still an idealist hoping to spread the ideas of freedom to the Russian muzhiks. But he is also a kind man and typical Frenchman of a smart mind and less than obedient nature - so a very good choice for a sleuth! His friends are not less human (if a bit less sympathetic in their fame and money hunt).
The mystery is less present (the book reads more like a military book with a mystery than a mystery set in the military environment), but it is an interesting mind game, a bit similar to a game of chess. Attack, counterattack, check mate - and finally? The players are intelligent and the ending is a real cliffhanger.
Interesting novel. I will read the second volume for sure.
September 3, 2013
The Officer's Prey by Armand Cabasson and translated by Michael Glencross is not only a good historical mystery, but managed to engage my interest in the Napoleonic Wars. About all I knew about Napoleon's disastrous Russian invasion was that the Russians practiced a scorched earth policy and that Napoleon's retreating troops were caught by the frigid Russian winter.
Reading this novel, however, the effects of the scorched earth policy were made unequivocally clear. Lack of food for humans or horses, disease, injuries, casualties, and desertion took their toll even before the final dreadful winter retreat which garnered even more lives.
Cabasson, psychiatrist, novelist, and Napoleonic specialist, says that 400,000 of the French Allied Army marched into Russia and that 300,000 were killed or captured. I checked on some figures that agreed and some that were higher. Regardless of which set of numbers you apply, how devastating to an army those losses would have been, and Cabasson makes the reader understand the circumstances on an individual as well as general basis. Another thing that shocked me was the estimated 200,000 horses lost on the campaign.
There are few things I enjoy more than to approach history through fiction, and thankfully, I no longer have to take notes and go to the encyclopedia and to the library for confirmation or more detail. (Google, I love you.) Events in history that I've passed over with little interest become fascinating when reading fictional accounts that personalize what could be just dry facts and figures.
OK -- The mystery. A Polish woman is brutally murdered and Prince Eugene, Napoleon's adopted son and head of the IV Corps, sends for Captain Quentin Margont. In a discreet manner, Margont is to find the murderer, and he is quite sure that Prince Eugene has not told him all he knows. Margont is further constricted by the fact that the murderer is most likely a colonel and that the investigation must be kept secret as the army continues its calamitous advance into Russia.
Will this mystery appeal to everyone? I suspect not--because so much attention is given to the detail of the campaign. For me, however, the historic information and Cabosson's ability to make the characters and events vivid was an added pleasure, not a distraction.
This was an ARC from Meryl Zegarek P.R., Inc. and Gallic Books.
Historic Fiction/Mystery. This translation will be available Oct. 15, 2013. 417 pages.
Reading this novel, however, the effects of the scorched earth policy were made unequivocally clear. Lack of food for humans or horses, disease, injuries, casualties, and desertion took their toll even before the final dreadful winter retreat which garnered even more lives.
Cabasson, psychiatrist, novelist, and Napoleonic specialist, says that 400,000 of the French Allied Army marched into Russia and that 300,000 were killed or captured. I checked on some figures that agreed and some that were higher. Regardless of which set of numbers you apply, how devastating to an army those losses would have been, and Cabasson makes the reader understand the circumstances on an individual as well as general basis. Another thing that shocked me was the estimated 200,000 horses lost on the campaign.
There are few things I enjoy more than to approach history through fiction, and thankfully, I no longer have to take notes and go to the encyclopedia and to the library for confirmation or more detail. (Google, I love you.) Events in history that I've passed over with little interest become fascinating when reading fictional accounts that personalize what could be just dry facts and figures.
OK -- The mystery. A Polish woman is brutally murdered and Prince Eugene, Napoleon's adopted son and head of the IV Corps, sends for Captain Quentin Margont. In a discreet manner, Margont is to find the murderer, and he is quite sure that Prince Eugene has not told him all he knows. Margont is further constricted by the fact that the murderer is most likely a colonel and that the investigation must be kept secret as the army continues its calamitous advance into Russia.
Will this mystery appeal to everyone? I suspect not--because so much attention is given to the detail of the campaign. For me, however, the historic information and Cabosson's ability to make the characters and events vivid was an added pleasure, not a distraction.
This was an ARC from Meryl Zegarek P.R., Inc. and Gallic Books.
Historic Fiction/Mystery. This translation will be available Oct. 15, 2013. 417 pages.
February 23, 2015
Mixed bag for me. The best part of this book for me was to read a very different viewpoint of the behavior of the Grande Armee. The English writers have painted Napoleon's soldiers in a very different light, so it is good to be exposed to another view (French). The juxtaposition of a thinking man, this captain who heads up investigation of murders whilst fighting a war, is very peculiar at times. So many pages are devoted to battlefield scenes, and then in the midst of sabers and cannonballs, we find Margont deciphering how the murderer thinks and what messages he is leaving behind. And this is while he and his friends are starving on the Russian campaign and being shot at. This might be one of the oddest mystery books I have read. Margont's resilient and positive outlook, however, may cause me to read the sequel if I find it at the library.
August 7, 2014
I picked up this book solely because the setting is Napoleon's invasion of Russia and I had just read War and Peace. I only finished this book for that reason. It is tedious, unimaginative, and not worth reading on its own.
The characters are entirely dimensionless: they serve merely as objects in a plotline with no internal life of their own.
The author is very shaky on historical fact (there is a scene in which three men are killed or wounded by three precision shots fired from muskets at distances over "100 paces") and uncritically pro-French. If only Napoleon had not been forced to invade Europe ... sigh. That perspective, though mistaken, did at least provide some interesting insights into the French mind.
The characters are entirely dimensionless: they serve merely as objects in a plotline with no internal life of their own.
The author is very shaky on historical fact (there is a scene in which three men are killed or wounded by three precision shots fired from muskets at distances over "100 paces") and uncritically pro-French. If only Napoleon had not been forced to invade Europe ... sigh. That perspective, though mistaken, did at least provide some interesting insights into the French mind.
April 21, 2016
Captain Margont, of Napoleon’s 84th Infantry, is assigned a secret mission to determine if one of the officers is torturing, mutilating, and murdering women. To complicate matters Margont and his compatriots are part of Napoleon’s Russian campaign, which means they not only fighting battles, but struggle to not starve and freeze to death retreating back from Moscow during the brutal winter. Part mystery, part war novel, all engrossing. This is the first Napoleonic fiction I have read written from the French point-of-view and it is a doozy. If you like Cornwell’s Sharpe series, you will love this series.
October 9, 2014
There were parts of this book that I liked. I was interested in solution to the mystery, and both the characters and some of the descriptions were good. However, there was too much filler in between the good parts, making for a tedious read. If it weren't for wanting to know the solution, I would have quit reading it. (As it was, I took multiple breaks to read other books while reading this one, and it took me so long I had to renew it from the library, which is unusual for me.)
July 24, 2014
Cabasson does a great job in this book of jumping between bits about the investigation and sequences about the war at just the right time to keep you wanting more of both. Sometimes there is a little unnecessary detail about aspects of the war but if you're into war literature I suppose that would be enjoyable. Margont is a very likable main character - very clever and witty
July 25, 2011
A bit like Bernard Cornwell meets Ellis Peters, this is a must read for any fans of the Napoleonic Wars. Mystery, adventure and absolutely steeped in period detail. Set during Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 I will certainly be reading the rest of the books in the series.
May 6, 2014
An interesting hitorical mystery. Good description of French Russian campaign of 1812.
August 1, 2015
Good story and interesting the way a CSI team would operate in 1800's. The troop movements were a little beyond me and dragged on a little.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 10, 2014
Excellent de manière inattendue.
May 8, 2015
Interesting mystery during Napolean's I'll fated Russian campaign.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews