How’s The Pain?-Pascal Garnier and Emily Boyce (translator)

How’s The Pain? Pascal Garnier and Emily Boyce (translator) Gallic, May 13, 2014, $12.95 ISBN: 9781908313034 Elderly Simon Marechall has spent a lifetime as an exterminator, but knows killing vermin is a young person’s game. With bodily aches and much more persuading him it is time to retire; Simon has one last commission in Cap d'Agde to complete before he hangs up his guns permanently. When Simon becomes ill on the way to his final job, he stops in Val les Bains. He meets twentyish Bernard Ferrand as both sit on a bench. Bernard explains he is in town visiting his mom while on medical leave recovering from an accident that cost him two fingers at work. Simon hires Bernard to drive him to Cap d'Agde so he can complete his last mission though the exterminator also accepts he will die hopefully not before he closes out his last vermin contract kill. Readers will relish the late Pascal Garnier’s graveyard humorous dark French noir. The traveling companions are an odd coupling of a dying mentor instructing his young chauffeur that exterminator and vermin have multiple connotations. Fans will enjoy their road show as nothing goes in accordance with Simon’s farewell tour plan. Harriet Klausner