Villa Triste

At the outbreak of the Algerian war, a young man who calls himself Victor Chmara flees Paris for a small lakeside town on the border of France and Switzerland.

It's here that he meets the flamboyant doctor René Meinthe and the mysterious auburn-haired Yvonne. Victor quickly embraces their world of pageants, soirees and late-night debauchery, and settles into an endless summer with Yvonne.

But René and Yvonne's lives are also full of unanswered questions and half-truths. As he looks back years later, Victor remains beguiled by those lost, unknowable friends, and the half-forgotten, enchanted place he chose to leave behind.

One of Modiano's most elegiac and haunting novels, Villa Triste is an intoxicating investigation into identity, place and memory.