V COMME… / V FOR… – SANDRINE LUCCHINI

Information

Author:

Sandrine Lucchini

Date:

Hachette Fictions
January 2026

Author:

Additional Info

V FOR...

Rights Holder: Hachette Fictions

Original Language: French

A brutal murder. A young woman hunted down. Inspector Lebon faces a ruthless criminal network that turns women into commodities...

A mark representing barbed wire branded onto the body: this is the chilling detail that catches Captain Hyppolyte Lebon's attention as he examines the body of a young Ukrainian prostitute, brutally murdered with a knife near the Gare de l'Est train station in Paris. Doubts multiply: could this sex worker have been killed for trying to escape her pimps? Could this crime serve as an example to deter others who might be planning to flee?

Very quickly, a clue leads Lebon to eastern France, to Villerupt. This town in Lorraine is not insignificant: it is the meeting point of three borders, those of France, Belgium, and Luxembourg. But above all, it is the town where Lebon grew up, and which he left eighteen years earlier after tragic events…

His past painfully intrudes on his investigation when Marie, his childhood sweetheart, is also found dead at her home in Villerupt. How could Marie, an unassuming pharmacist, be involved in the murder of the young prostitute in Paris?

Sandrine Lucchini, author and director of investigative reports on the police and justice system, has degrees in psychopathology and psychoanalysis. She is deeply interested in the phenomena of control and radicalization, and her novels are informed by solid investigative work and immersion in the environments she describes. Her first novel, Tarot sanglant (2022, Black Lab), was a finalist for the 2023 Prix de l'Evêché, and Jusqu'à ce qu'elles se soumettent (2024, Black Lab) was a finalist for the 2024 Prix Cognac. V comme… is her third novel.

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