Hortense Is Abducted Author:Jacques Roubaud On the sixth prie-dieu of the ninth row of the Church of Sainte-Gudule the corpse is discovered. Chief inspector Blognard is on the scene, as is our narrator, now married to Hortense, the delectable star of Roubaud's first novel "Our Beautiful Heroine". But will they succeed in detecting the criminalperhaps the same?before his plot to ... more »kidnap the lovely bride succeeds? Or perhaps Carlotta, the fifteen-year-old redhead, her mysterious black cat Hotello, and the Poldevian pony prince Cyrandozoi will prevail where lesser men have failed? The delightful imaginary world brought into being in Jacques Roubaud's first novel comes to uproarious life again in this sequel. While the murder investigation is afoot, teenage girls argue the relative merits of the rock groups Dew-Pon Dew-Val and Landau Valley, Pere Sinouls tries to program a computer to take his place at the organ so that he can continue to practice Beeranalysis, and the clientele of the Gudule Bar debate the reality of Infinity. The author's whimsical touch and deft craftsmanship intermingle reflections on the novel, asides to the reader, and a rich gallery of comic characters enmeshed in a peculiar intrigue that spirals like the Poldevian coat of armsa snail.« less