Set in the pastoral ambiance of 1960s France, Detective Lauriant Investigates contains two hardboiled novellas. "Death in a Ditch" delivers Lauriant to Saint Sauveur where he begins the nasty task of piecing together the grisly death of an antiques dealer whose body has been found in a ditch. "Murder in the Vendee" finds Lauriant disgraced and banished to a small, sleepy province where he must solve the mystery of a Count's murder. The obvious suspect is the Count's son, but Lauriant senses deeper, political motives...