Alex, by French author Pierre Lemaitre is one of my favourite crime books, as it has an unusual and intriguing plotline. The French translation is a great read and has you hooked from the beginning.

When a young woman is violently beaten and kidnapped, then trapped in a cage in a warehouse, she imagines these to be the last moments of her life. Meanwhile as she waits for death, the French police, led by broken and spiralling detective Camille Verhoeven, attempt to locate the missing woman, who seems to have no identity. As no progress is made on identifying the woman missing and the police are running out of time, the young woman escapes from her captor, and begins to unearth the past once more.

I loved this novel as the twist in the story was amazing. From knowing little to nothing about this missing woman from Paris, the author begins to create a character that has two sides; the woman the police are looking for, and the woman Alex really is.

I really liked the detail put into detective Verhoeven's character, and how much we discovered about his troubled past and its effect on the case. Alex is very well translated, unlike many french to english translations I have read. The constantly turning and developing case was thrilling and frightening, a completely misleading plot. I highly recommend this novel to fans of crime and mysteries.