Notre-Dame-de-la-Merci

On a cold wintery day in the dark dead-end northern Quebec village of Notre-Dame-de-la-Merci, two men and a woman are entangled in a triangle that is only destined for tragedy. There is Odette, the widow of a Hells Angels biker and a smalltime coke dealer, Daniel the local snowplow driver and Jean, a young man willing to do anything to get out of this miserable nowhere town. Looking on is Quentin Mouron’s narrator, who watches helplessly as the calamity unfolds. He can only look on and ask questions. It is these questions, throbbing and multifaceted, that gives the story a universal resonance, far exceeding the action. Notre Dame-de-la-Merci is story of crime and desperation, calling to mind the atmosphere and characters of Fargo, where amidst the cold harshness of winter dirtbags and delinquents find themselves on a collision course and catastrophe is always a matter of time. Quentin Mouron is a Swiss-Canadian novelist who has written five novels in Switerzland that have seen his critical notoriety sky rocket in the literary scenes of France and French-speaking Switzerland. Born in Lausanne, Mouron spent his childhood in Quebec Canada. His books have now been translated into German and his crime/mystery novel Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine (Bitter Lemon Press, 2017) has been translated into English.

“Mouron is a revelation. He juggles characters with ease in a seamy world perfectly evoked and all of it is done in a tauttempo style” - Huffington Post

“A Promising Talent” - Le Devoir

“Mouron...writes rough material in a small, confined spaces. His writing is astonishing in his mastery and freshness.” - 20 Minutes