Nicolas Freeling: A Dwarf Kingdom (USA 2023)

From the Publisher:
The final Henri Castang mystery confirms the Edgar award-winning author's "mastery of character and imagery in a superlative study of people and power (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

After the murder of dear friends and an attack on his wife, Vera, Inspector Henri Castang is finished with life as an investigator. As the couple settles into an inherited cliff-top home in Biarritz, Castang is just starting to wonder if retirement suits him when his only grandchild is kidnapped, sending him on a terrifying chase that is all too personal. With the local police stunted by politics, it's up to Castang to catch this perp-and he will. Even if it's the last thing he ever does...

Nicolas Freeling: A Dwarf Kingdom. A Henri Castang Mystery. Early Bird Books / Open Road Media, ISBN: 9781504090223 (December, 2023), eBook, 4107 KB (ca. 281 p.), $14.99.

Nicolas Freeling: A Dwarf Kingdom (2001)

From the Publisher:
On a searing, cloudless night in Brussels, Henri Castang witnesses a savage attack. He escapes with his life but his friends do not and Castang decides that thirty years as a Police Inspector are enough. Castang escapes a career that has claimed so many of his friends but even as he holidays in Biarritz, there are inescapable demons, which haunt him. His granddaughter is abducted. A story based on conspiracy and sleaze, Castang is faced with the awful decision of cooperating with those who provoke him. Nicolas Freeling leaves us wondering whether to deal with demons.

Nicolas Freeling: A Dwarf Kingdom. A Henri Castang Mystery. House of Stratus, ISBN: 1842328697 (July, 2001), 196 p., £6.99, $11.50.

Nicolas Freeling: A Dwarf Kingdom (USA 1997)

From the Publisher:
Farewell, Castang...
Nicolas Freeling is one of the towering figures in mystery fiction. The creator of the inimitable European police inspector Henri Castang -- a man whose beat is a war-torn, socially unjust Europe -- Freeling has now written his final Castang novel: a violent, brooding mystery that doubles as a meditation on power, corruption, and the enduring power of love.

A DWARF KINGDOM
A brutal murder sends Castang reeling into retirement on the Atlantic seacoast at Biarritz. But there, the kidnapping of a child haunts both the house in which Castang and his wife, Vera, live and Castang's career itself -- pitting a weary policeman against a kingdom of dangerous little men ruled by the deadliest man of all...

Violent, thoughtful, and spellbinding, A DWARF KINGDOM is the crowning work in a remarkable mystery series and fitting farewell to a man of action and thought.

"AN EXAMPLE OF HIS BEST WORK... CONFIRMS FREELING'S MASTERY OF CHARACTER AND IMAGERY IN A SUPERLATIVE STUDY OF PEOPLE AND POWER." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"WITH A CLEVER TWIST OF PLOT... THIS IS A FITTING FAREWELL TO THE CASTANGS." -- Cleveland Plain Dealer

Nicolas Freeling: A Dwarf Kingdom. A Henri Castang Mystery Novel. The Mysterious Press / Warner Books, ISBN: 0446405183 (August, 1997), 208 p., $5.99.