A dark and chilling novel about a man and his toddler son and the secret world they create in order to erase loss and preserve—at any cost—a perfect love.

Marie had warned Felix that she would leave them the day their baby boy took his first steps, and true to her word, she abruptly abandons the little family just as little Colin enters his toddler years. Reluctant to disappoint his son who asks for his mother, Felix spontaneously slips into one of the blouses Marie left behind. Encouraged by Colin’s seeming satisfaction at even a slight leftover scent of his mother, Felix perfects his act until the transformation is complete. At the book’s opening Felix lives on his own again and is obsessively investigating a possible arson case involving a young mother and her son, subsequently disappeared. The case has painful echoes for Felix, who knows loss all too well.

Told in reverse chronological order, Caresse de rouge is as suspenseful as it is funny and tender, and as restrained as it is passionate and daring.