---
title: "Come Barbarians by Todd Babiak"
description: "Todd Babiak's latest novel about a Canadian family accidentally caught up with mobsters in the south of France needs to be read with the lights on and the doors locked! This is not earnest Canadiana...."
url: https://somisguided.com/2013/11/18/come-barbarians-by-todd-babiak/
date: 2013-11-18
modified: 2018-07-20
author: "Monique"
categories: ["Book Reviews"]
type: post
lang: en
---

# Come Barbarians by Todd Babiak

Todd Babiak’s latest novel about a Canadian family accidentally caught up with mobsters in the south of France needs to be read with the lights on and the doors locked!

[!(https://somisguided.com/wp-content/uploads/come-barbarians-babiak_thumb.jpg)](http://www.harpercollins.ca/books/Come-Barbarians-Todd-Babiak/?isbn=9781554684410)

This is not earnest Canadiana. Babiak has written a spine-tingling, torture-ridden, political drama about the Kruse family who end up hunted by a Corsican crime family hired by a political party with connections throughout the country and in the gendarmerie.

Christopher and Evelyn Kruse bring their 4-year-old daughter Lily to South France in an attempt to rekindle their love. Instead they are driven apart when their daughter is hit and killed by a drunk driver who happens to be their landlord and the poster-boy candidate for the Front National party, Jean-Francois de Musset. The next morning Jean-Francois and his wife are found brutally murdered, Evelyn is on the run, and Christopher discovers Russian goons hired by a Corsican crime family are hunting his wife. He must draw on his security forces training and own investigative skills to find her before they do.

*Come Barbarians* is a fantastic thriller where South France is as much a character as Christopher himself; dark, mysterious and desperately seeking some form of stasis.

If you like *The Wire* tv series, you’ll like *Come Barbarians*.

I think I also enjoyed this novel because we were in South France last year and visited many of the towns mentioned in the book, including Vaison-la-romaine where the book opens.

[!(http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7222/7321100390_5a2661d6b8_m.jpg)](http://www.flickr.com/photos/somisguided/7321100390/)

[!(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8145/7163941173_8a64021706_m.jpg)](http://www.flickr.com/photos/somisguided/7163941173/)

[!(http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7242/7321013960_a4874387de_m.jpg)](http://www.flickr.com/photos/somisguided/7321013960/)

**Come Barbarians** by Todd Babiak

Published by (http://www.harpercollins.ca/books/Come-Barbarians-Todd-Babiak/?isbn=9781554684410)