2 stars. Which is probably due to my own fault. I started this book not realizing that it was smack dab in the middle of a series. Therefore I had a lot of trouble pieces certain things together because I didn’t have a back story. I kept reading on thinking that I would be able to put it all together and understand but I didn’t. I did love the international telling and placement of this book. It intrigued me enough to go to the beginning of the series and work my way up. This was not at all the authors fault at all. Just my own

Great thriller which I could not put down. Brilliant characters, and twists and turns. Highly recommend to others!

When a homeless man jumps to his death. the police discover two wallets in his possession. One belongs to a retired psychiatrist who was recently murdered. The other belongs to a powerful corporate lawyer who is missing.

Detectives Victor Lessard and his partner, Jacinthe Tailon, are called in to investigate. What they find leads them to a crime committed in the past ... is the same killer still lurking?

This is a long, complex crime thriller, with many characters taking part in the telling. It started a little slow for me, but didn't take long for the suspense to take hold. There are many mentions of past cases, past events, past history. Lessard, as a detective with issues, manages to do his job and do it well. I found his partner to be rude, obnoxious and not very likable. There are twists and turns to follow .. some of them got lost by the end of the book. It was still an interesting read by this French-Canadian author.

Many thanks to the author / the translator / Dundurn Press / Netgalley for the digital copy of this crime fiction. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

The third in the series but first to be translated, this can be read as a standalone book (some references are mad to previous things but you can keep up)

While I enjoyed the twisted web of this plot some things did get lost along the way and I always feel that if I am left wondering about storylines, will they be addressed in a future book or will I be thinking about them for a long time? The book is complicated and at times I had to refresh myself on previous parts of the book as I went. I am not used to this heaviness !

So I ended up not finishing the book because I had no idea this was the third book in a series but the first to be translated to English. As I was reading I do kind of feel like I was missing something that happened in the previous books. I’m not sure if it was because of how the book was written or how it was translated but I did find the writing style confusing. But it is possible that it’s because of it being the third book in a series.

Only had a chance to read part of this due to the craziness that has been 2020, but I love Martin Michaud's work and I cannot recommend it enough.

i really enjoyed reading this book, the characters were great and I really enjoyed the mystery plot in the book. I look forward to more from the author and hopefully more in the series.

This is the third in the DS Victor Lessard Montreal series but the first to be translated from French to English.
When a homeless man jumps to his death not everything is at it seems.
On discovering of his body he has two wallets on him one belonged to a psychiatrist who was murdered in a very bizarre way and the other belongs to a corporate lawyer who is missing.
As DS Victor Lessard and partner Jacinthe Tailon investigate the death more bodies turn up, can they solve thos crime before its to late?

Police discovers 2 wallets in the possession of an eccentric homeless man who jumped to his death in Old Montreal. The wallets were of a retired psychiatrist who was murdered in a bizarre ritual and a powerful corporate lawyer who's missing. Police detective Victor Lessard and his partner, Jacinthe Taillon, work to solve the mysteries. With bodies accumulating, dark and disturbing secrets come to light about a pivotal moment in Quebec’s history.

This is book 3 of this series. The publisher seems to have started translating a series from the third book instead of the first!! Though the story as such can be read as a standalone, to understand the growth of individual characters we need to start from the first book. The story and the characters were complex. It took some effort to get into the story, with me having to go back and read some parts again. But once I got the hang of things, I was good to go.

Overall, a thrilling police procedural. I'm looking forward to reading more books of this series but starting from the beginning!! I give this book 4 stars. Thanks to Netgalley and Dundurn Press for providing me with an ARC of this book.

I wasn't very familiar with the series so can't compare to other stories featuring the same main character, but it's a police procedural with an edge.

I love a crime thriller and this one didn’t disappoint. I haven’t read the previous books in this series but I don’t think it’s really needed.

Well known Canadian #Author Martin Michaud is finally being translated in #Never Forget.This is the third in the #Detective Victor Lessard series. He also is the screenwriter for television series’s based on hisnovels.
The novel is interesting and complex as are the characters.As with other reviews when out of order you can look forward to the others.After all this is a treat.
Thank you,
#Netgalley,#Martin Michaud,#DunDurn Press

EXCERPT: They were startled by a noise resembling the striking of a matchstick: the burner on the gas furnace had just lit up. Victor released his breath, wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, and opened the door at the far end of the workshop.

The beam of his flashlight slid across the room, and a cry froze in his throat. An odour of death and offal hung in the air. The body of a man in his underwear lay in a puddle of blood and excrement.

The detective sergeant snapped a mental image of the scene: the corpse was lying face up, arms crossed. Brownish wounds were visible on the diaphanous skin of the throat and chest. The wrists bore purple bruises, and the cracked dry lips had split open in several places.

ABOUT THIS BOOK: When an eccentric homeless man jumps to his death in Old Montreal, the police discover two wallets in his possession: those of a retired psychiatrist who was recently murdered in a bizarre ritual and a powerful corporate lawyer who has vanished. As police detective Victor Lessard and his partner, Jacinthe Taillon, work to solve the separate mysteries, a dark history begins to emerge.

While the pressure builds and the bodies accumulate, dark and disturbing secrets come to light about a pivotal moment in Quebec’s history. But will Lessard and Taillon crack the case in time to prevent the killer from striking again?

MY THOUGHTS: It's complicated . . .

I am unsure why a publisher would choose to start translating a series with the third book. I know that some series are easy to pick up part way through. This isn't one of them.

The plot is complex. The characters are complex, and there are a lot of them. It took me a long time to settle into this book, and even then, I managed to lose my way a couple of times and had to go back and reread things. There are frequent references to past cases, past events, past history.

Victor Lessard is an alcoholic (not drinking, but once an alcoholic...) suffers from depression, anxiety, PTSD, and tends to vomit at the sight of a body. There is a lot of vomiting takes place. His partner, Jacinthe Taillon, is obsessed with food and only trusts Lessard to a certain point. Not an easy working relationship. She is rude, insensitive and brings nothing to the story other than her ability to break down doors.

If you are a fan of conspiracy theories, you will love this book. It covers a lot of historical ground, from CIA funded experiments into mind control using drugs and other even more barbaric methods to the assassination of President John Kennedy.

This was definitely an interesting read, but as I said, it is complicated. Would I read more in this series? That would depend on being able to start from the beginning.

🤯🏙🚔

'Evil creeps. Evil prowls. It insinuates itself into the soul's blank spaces. And sometimes, for no apparent reason, when you're sure it's busy elsewhere, it catches your scent of ashes on the cold air, turns from its path and follows you.'

'By deinstitutionalizing the mentally ill, we've put all our eggs in one basket. We've gone from one extreme to the other. It's gotten to the point where most people who need custodial care are now on the streets.'

'Once a mistake is made, there's no going back to unmake it.'

'Unlike the movies, where there's always a ruthless logic behind every action, reality can be disappointing and disturbing.'

THE AUTHOR: Born in 1970, Martin Michaud is a musician, novelist and screenwriter. He worked as a business lawyer for twenty years before devoting himself to writing full-time in 2012.

His novels have gained a wide readership in Quebec and Europe, winning numerous literary prizes. He is hailed by critics as “the master of the Quebec thriller.”

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Dundurn Press via NetGalley for providing a digital ARC of Never Forget by Martin Michaud for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

For an explanation of my rating system please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com

This review and others are also published on Twitter, Amazon and my webpage

This book was okay, but I think I'm missing something from the first two. I can't read them yet since they haven't been translated yet, but I hope to pick them up if they are so I can piece together what I'm missing.

Even so, this book kept me going. I'm glad I got a chance to read it, but I had hoped for a bit more.

This book kept me up at night. It moves along at a dizzying pace with loads of tension. The twists and turns of the plot delighted me as the bodies piled up. A cracking read and recommended to those who love a good mystery.

Break out the Canadian Whiskey, the Canada Dry ginger ale, and brown up some Canadian bacon, put your feet up, and relax. You are about to enter the realm of Montreal's master of the crime thriller, Martin Michaud. His five-book Victor Lessard series is set in the grittiest streets and alleys of Montreal and is now being made available in English (expertly translated), starting with the third book in the series.

Victor is a battered cynical detective, surviving career-ending injury and a bout with the bottle and with nicotine. He’s partnered with Jacinthe Taillon, who has the not-so-svelte figure of Bertha Cool (see Erie Stanley Gardner’s Bertha and Cool series) and the grace of a linebacker. Between devouring boxes of donuts, Jacinthe worries Victor about possible police brutality every time she gets near a suspect. An odd pair, but they work the way any Mutt and Jeff couple does. They both fly by the seat of their pants, operate on intuition, and seldom hold back their emotions.

This case begins quite mysteriously with a homeless crazytown guy flying off a roof with two wallets in his possession not belonging to him. One belonging to a well respected psychiatrist and one to a well known attorney. Sounds simple. It’s not. What appears to be a simple missing person/ murder case gets far more complex. It involves medieval torture devices, Lee Harvey Oswald, JFK, the CIA, drugs, mind control, memory wiping, and the dirty underside of Quebec politics.

This is a harrowing piece by piece painstaking investigation doggedly pursued by a fascinating pair of detectives and involving events going back fifty years and head-spinning connections.

While Martin Michaud is a well known crime writer in Canada, he is relatively unknown elsewhere, due in large part to his prior novels not being translated to English. Never Forget is the first novel translated into English. This is the third novel in the Victor Lessard series. There is enough information contained in this story that you don’t have to have read the prior novels in the series to find your bearings in this story. Victor Lessard and his partner Jacinthe Taillon catch an unusual murder in which a middle aged female researcher from the local college is found nude and tortured in a warehouse. When the apparent suicide of a local homeless man links the murder to the disappearance of a prominent lawyer, Victor and Jacinthe must ramp up their efforts to find the ruthless murderer who has found a most unusual method of execution. As the body count rises, the pressure is on to solve this string of bizarre cases. The deeper Victor digs the stranger the case becomes as it appears to share links to the decades old assassination of JFK. This a complex mystery in which there are new surprises at every turn as the conspiracy unfolds. The author indulges in his imagination to tell this story, and while this obviously is a bit far fetched, stir adds some zest to this story, and it wouldn’t be the same without it. I look forward to hearing more from Martin Michaud. The first two novels in the series are due to be rereleased in English later this year, and hopefully future novels in the series will also be made available in English. Review posted to Goodreads, LibraryThing, and Amazon.

Never Forget by Martin Michaud is the third in the Detective Victor Lessard series, however this novel is the first to be translated from French into English and I have no doubt the previous ones will soon follow. The author is also the screenwriter for the very successful television series based on these novels. Detective Victor Lessard and his quirky partner Jacinthe Taillon have been assigned to the suicide of a homeless man who, at the time of his demise, had in his possession two wallets: one belonging to a tortured murder victim and one belonging to a missing person. As the detectives investigate, the body count goes up. The puzzle is baffling for all involved and the police may need to go back in time, as far as the 1960s, to solve it. If you enjoy Scandinavian noir fiction and psychological thrillers, this mystery is for you. Highly recommended. Thank you to Dundurn Press and NetGalley for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

When the elderly man climbed 48 flights of steps, I knew I was going to have trouble with the translation. I read on till about 10% and could not figure out what was going on. Quit.

A fun crime thriller. Exciting plot line though a bit generic. A solid read. The Canadian setting was a fun change of pace.