Inspector Cadin
Created by Didier Daeninckx

INSPECTOR CADIN is a French cop, and author Daeninckx's only recurring character. Cadin is a very engaging character, whose investigations (like most of Daeninckx's mysteries) revolve around various French locales and forgotten bits of French recent history. Daeninckx has also written about a private eye, René Griffon, who appeared in a very successful book, which offered a hard look at France's role in WWI.

Daeninckx is often touted as being France's leading mystery writer. Certainly, his 1984 novel Meurtres pour Mèmoire, featuring Cadin, caused quite a sensation. It embarrassed and forced the French government to try Nazi collaborators and led to the life imprisonment of Paul Touvier.

NOVELS

• Mort au premier Tour (1982)
• Meurtres pour Mèmoire (1984; in English as Murder in Memoriam)
• Le Gèant inachevé (1984)
• Le Bourreau et son double (1986)
• Lumiëre noire (1987; brief appearance as a private detective)

Merci to Marcel Bernadac and Laurent Lehmann for this one, and to Big Al Hubin for putting me straight on a few things.