The Dying Minutes — Martin O'Brien

When an old friend dies and leaves Jacquot a fishing boat, all kinds of secrets and crimes come back to haunt him, in the seventh in the Marseilles-set Inspector Daniel Jacquot novels

Chief Inspector Daniel Jacquot is on sick leave recovering from gunshot wounds when Isabelle Cassier, an old friend and sometime lover, pays him a visit. After working for the Judiciaire in Paris following the end of their brief affair, Isabelle has returned to Marseilles and rejoined the homicide squad. And her visit, she tells him, is official -- Jacquot's name has appeared in connection with an unsolved murder she's investigating, and she wants some answers. She wants to know what he knows about a dead cop called Gilles Barsin, and just how friendly he was with Jean-Louis Lombard, a notorious dockland villain also known as The Seahorse? The two names spin Jacquot back to his days as a rookie cop, a distant time when the lines between law and disorder were often blurred, when silly mistakes were sometimes made, and friendship came at a heavy price. Now, years later, it looks like someone is spilling the beans.