Tag: French writers

Quai du Polar – And the 2023 winner is

Flash update, my second choice came in first, see the bottom of this article

After having debated (with myself), the 2023 reader’s prize goes to Tristan Saule’s ‘Héroïne’

I have read through the shortlist for the reader’s prize, just in time, and several of the books were good so, after reading my previous write ups, much like Goldilocks I first eliminated:

L’affaire de l’île Barbe – Surin d’Apache 1 de Stanislas Petrosky – AFITT Éditions
This book is too short
The crime itself and its resolution, or in this case non resolution felt like a book only half finished.

Then again like Goldilocks I eliminated

Le Blues des phalènes de Valentine Imhof – Éditions du Rouergue
This book is too long
The subjects, all 4 of them, could have each represented a book all alone, well researched judging by the pages of references, in places interesting, but I just kept looking at my watch.

But I also know when I am beaten.

Pas de littérature ! de Sébastien Rutés – Éditions Gallimard.
I didn’t read this one
2 years ago I did try to read the last of his to be selected for this short list, but it was unreadable (I very rarely give up). I’m not sure how the short list is drawn up but Gallimard can do better!

So then in third place:

Le Tableau du peintre juif de Benoît Séverac – Éditions La Manufacture de livres
Then begins a Tour de France and of Spain as he seeks to unravel the story and clear his grandfather’s name. I must admit that I lost a little interest as he went from location to location with descriptions of the places etc; not a winner for me.

Next we come to the two finalists, I enjoyed both books but there has to be a winner, so in second place:

Nous étions le sel de la mer de Roxanne Bouchard – Éditions de L’Aube
The facts, or the memories of this story: another sea death when every fishing family has lost someone at sea, this is not an unusual event, are slowly, almost reluctantly distilled over 300 pages as Roxanne Bouchard slows the story down to the speed of the sea.
This is a clear possible winner.

And Finally Goldilocks says ‘this one is just right’:

Héroïne de Tristan Saule – Le Quartanier Éditeur
This really was rather an excellent story with a twist at the end. A real competitor for the prize!

Stanislas Petrosky ‘L’affaire de l’île Barbe’

I maybe have another, professor… Lacassagne and Gustini turned to look inquisitively at me. — Well go ahead, speak young man. Don’t keep us hanging on for no reason! —This….as I spoke, I rolled up my sleeve. —But why didn’t I think of that before! It’s a totally valid hypothesis…this woman could have tattoos on her legs which would have allowed us to identify her.

Next, my third book read this year for the Readers Prize at the Quai du Polar in Lyon. This is meant to be the first book in a series named after a street gang in Lyons, the Apaches, whose main protagonist, Ange-Clément Huin, an ex-member of this gang, assists the medical examiner, Alexandre Lacassagne in the early 1880’s.

This first case begins with an unknown woman’s corpse, with the legs sectioned and missing, being found in a sack, floating on the river Rhône. At the time the morgue was on a docked river boat, not close to the houses due amongst other reasons to the smell, and the law for viewing dead corpses:

It had frozen on the night of the 10th to the 11th of January 1881. The slight wind that deadens your ear tips was particularly disagreeable. Already a long queue was beginning to form on the river bank. Outside of the floating morgue which was anchored to the Hôtel-Dieu Quai, opposite the Soufflot Dôme, by large chains, the public was getting impatient. I had never been able to understand all of these onlookers who turned up to queue at the break of dawn to see corpses! They were thus able to quench their unhealthy thirst for curiosity thanks to the law that states that “any unidentified body brought to the morgue will remain exposed to the public for as long as its state of conservation will allow”.

Ange-Clément uses his knowledge of the criminal world at the time to help Lacassagne to better understand criminal motives and the underworld in general, such as his description here of his arm:

I thought back to a street fight I’d been part of….I was faced with several ruffians and had no more ammunition for my pistol. I had the same handgun as all of the Apaches. Which was a bit like that strange knife that the Swiss army had just bought for its soldiers. You could eat with it, take your rifle apart, and it had a blade, a tin opener, a flat head screwdriver and a punch. And so my weapon was at once a revolver, a dagger and a knuckle duster.

The idea for this series is interesting, the language giving a feeling of the 1880’s and the interaction of the characters seems good, but the crime itself and its resolution, or in this case non resolution felt like a book only half finished and left me slightly frustrated in spite of the many many pages of reference texts about the characters and period at the end of the book. Unfinished is the feeling that remains with me at the end.

First Published in French by AFITT editions in 2022.

*** my translation

The quotes as read in French before translation

Moi, j’en aurais peut-être bien une autre, professeur… Lacassagne et Gustini se tournèrent vers moi avec des yeux pleins d’interrogation. — Eh bien allez-y, parlez, mon garçon. Ne nous faites point donc languir plus que de raison ! — Ça… En parlant, je retroussai ma manche afin de laisser apparaître mon avant-bras. — Mais comment n’y ai-je pas pensé plus tôt ! C’est une hypothèse tout à fait possible… Cette femme pouvait être tatouée sur les jambes, ce qui aurait permis de l’identifier.

Il avait gelé dans la nuit du 10 au 11 janvier 1881. Le petit vent qui vous engourdissait la pointe des oreilles n’était pas ce qu’il y avait de plus agréable. Déjà, une longue file commençait à naître sur la rive. Le public s’impatientait devant la morgue flottante amarrée par de grosses chaînes sur le quai de l’Hôtel-Dieu, en face du grand Dôme de Soufflot. Jamais je n’avais pu comprendre tous ces badauds qui venaient aux aurores faire la queue pour pouvoir voir du macchabée ! Ils profitaient, pour assouvir leur curiosité malsaine, du règlement qui disait que « le cadavre de toute personne inconnue apporté à la morgue restera exposé aux regards du public tant que son état de conservation le permettra ».

Je repensais à une bagarre de rue à laquelle j’avais été mêlé… Plusieurs bougres me faisaient face, et je n’avais plus de munitions dans mon revolver. Je disposais de la même arme de poing que tous les Apaches. Qui était un peu comme ce drôle de couteau que l’armée suisse venait d’acheter pour ses soldats. On pouvait manger avec, démonter le fusil d’ordonnance, et il disposait d’une lame, d’un ouvre-boîte, d’un tournevis plat et un poinçon. Eh bien mon arme faisait office de revolver, de surin et de coup-de-poing américain.

Benoît Séverac ‘Le tableau du peintre juif’

The Yellow Vests killed me. The sentence could make you laugh. My generation – I’m fifty two years old – remember the Omar Raddad affair , where he was never clearly shown to be guilty. In my case it couldn’t be clearer: I was dead already by the second weekend of the Yellow Vest demonstrations at it was them, the roundabout rebels, that were guilty. I had a transport company. Small. Three lorries, including the one I drove, and three employees including the secretary.

Into my second book read this year for the Readers Prize at the Quai du Polar in Lyon. This is the second book by Severac read for this prize after “Tuer le fils” read in 2021 and from the same publisher. The main protagonist of this story is Stéphane Milhas, a person that has been full of energy in his life, setting up more than one business, such as at the beginning of the story a haulage company that goes under due to outside forces. in this instance the yellow vests as illustarted in the opening quote. This is a blueprint for Milhas, outside forces acting on him, and him fighting against these forces.

Milhas’s aunt and uncle are cleaning up their lives having decided to enter an old persons home and leave him a painting from his grandfather, a member of the resistance, painted by a Jew that his father had helped escape during the war, he decides to get his grandfather recognised as Righteous Among the nations, a task to get him out of his slump as his wife, Irène had said:

She’s right, I wallowed in my classification as a victim through all these months of being unemployed. And to be quite frank about it, I didn’t set out to get the recognition of Righteous Among the Nations for my grandparents, but for myself. I realise that. I can see that clearly now.

The first section of the book follows Milhas in his quest and eventually to Tel Aviv to have his painting verified before the announcement. However this is where things go seriously wrong, there seems to be an error in the timelines as his grandfather had helped Eli Trudel and his wife to escape from France after their confirmed death in the camps, he is initially arrested, his painting is confiscated and his grandfather’s name soiled.

Since I haven’t stopped asking why I had been arrested. “What’s happening? What have I done?” They didn’t utter a word. Until an officer appeared accompanied by an interpreter to tell me that my painting had been seized. Stolen Art. Spoliation from Jews. The Shoah, the camps, denunciations….I’ve just tumbled into the wrong side of History. Well at the very least, my grandfather. But it was as if it was me. My family, my name….ruined; We are officially bastards.

Then begins a Tour de France and of Spain as he seeks to unravel the story and clear his grandfather’s name. I must admit that I lost a little interest as he went from location to location with descriptions of the places etc; not a winner for me.

First Published in French by La manufacture de livres in 2022.

*** my translation

The quotes as read in French before translation

Depuis, je n’ai cessé de demander les raisons de mon arrestation. « Que se passe-t-il ? Qu’ai-je fait ? » Ils ont observé un mutisme total. Jusqu’à ce qu’un officier se présente accompagné d’un interprète et me signifie la saisie de mon tableau. Art volé. Spoliateur de Juifs. La Shoah, les camps, les dénonciations… Je viens de basculer du mauvais côté de l’Histoire. Tout au moins, mon grand-père. Mais c’est comme si c’était moi. Ma famille, mon nom… salis ; nous sommes officiellement des salauds.

Les Gilets jaunes m’ont tuer. » La phrase pourrait prêter à sourire. Ceux de ma génération – j’ai cinquante-deux ans – se souviennent de l’affaire Omar Raddad dont la culpabilité n’a jamais été clairement établie. Dans mon cas, c’est on ne peut plus transparent : je suis mort dès le deuxième week-end de manifestations des Gilets jaunes, et ce sont bien eux, les révoltés des ronds-points, les coupables. J’avais une entreprise de transport. Petite. Trois camions, dont celui que je conduisais, et trois employés en comptant la secrétaire.

Elle a raison, je me suis complu dans ma situation de victime pendant tous ces mois de chômage. Et pour être tout à fait franc, je ne me suis pas lancé dans cette reconnaissance du statut de Justes parmi les Nations pour mes grands-parents, mais pour moi. J’en suis conscient. Je suis plus lucide maintenant.

Stéphane Milhas, Irène, Eli Trudel

Quai du Polar 2023 and we’re off

It’s that time of year again, Quai du Polar is back and for the “Prix des Lecteurs”, on the 12th of January, the following 6 books are in the running for 2023.

  • Nous étions le sel de la mer de Roxanne Bouchard – Éditions de L’Aube
  • Le Blues des phalènes de Valentine Imhof – Éditions du Rouergue
  • L’affaire de l’île Barbe – Surin d’Apache 1 de Stanislas Petrosky – AFITT Éditions
  • Pas de littérature ! de Sébastien Rutés – Éditions Gallimard
  • Héroïne de Tristan Saule – Le Quartanier Éditeur
  • Le Tableau du peintre juif de Benoît Séverac – Éditions La Manufacture de livres

The short list contains 6 books, but my time is too precious to waste, so I won’t be reading the Rutés, 2 years ago I did try to read the last of his to be selected for this short list, but it was unreadable (I very rarely give up). I’m not sure how the short list is drawn up but Gallimard can do better!

If you decide to read these books before the event to outguess the jury, let me know!

Négar Djavadi ‘Arène’

Sam’s brain thinks ahead at full speed. It’s out of the question for her to give him this chance, then have to watch his devilish efficient demonstration of how to do it, dropping a little comment on the way such as: « at one time or another you have to know how to get things done. We’re not going to wake him up softly with a cup of tea! » a phrase she could quickly translate as « what the fuck are you up to, Baydar, stood there whispering sweet nothings in his ear! »***

This is Négar Djavadi’s second book, Arène, as in the Arena in Ancient Rome. The real leading role in this book is the forgotten Eastern arrondissements of Paris, centred here on Belleville, where the different housing estates have been forgotten by the politicians, they are poor, with an economy based on drug trafficking and tit for tat killings between the young gang members of the different estates, added to this are the many migrants sleeping in the streets.

A young man dies on the bank of a canal and the powder keg explodes.

Djavadi tells this story through a huge cast of characters, firstly from the point of view of Benjamin Grossman, in charge of the sector « France » of BeCurrent, the primary competitor of Netflix, back from Los Angeles and visiting his childhood home in one of these housing estates. In between being a person of major importance for the local entertainment industry and being unknown on the streets of Belleville, and his culture shock coming back to this from LA. Grossman may be responsible for the death, having pushed the young man, thinking he had stolen Grossman’s phone, the man, Issa Zeitounï, falls awkwardly and bangs his head before getting up and walking away.

There is the young policewoman Baydar, of Turkish origin, already disowned by her family for joining the police, illustrated in the opening quote, under pressure from her macho team mate, Dalloz and who finds Issa by the banks of the canal, thinks he is a drugged migrant, shakes him and then ceding to the pressure, kicking him to try to get a response, before discovering he is dead.

There is Camille a young sixth form student and video activist who films Baydar and edits her video to show the police not even leaving the local people alone when they are dead but kicking their corpses:

Like everyone on Twitter, Camille is after popularity and followers. Anyone who would sign up to a social network without these aims would be relegated to being a third class citizen, an”Invisible”, a “Beggar”, condemned to a long stay in the hold with the rats and other forgotten people.***

And then there is Stéphane Jahanguir Sharif, an observer of society, as his Twitter handle goes, who’s part in the drama is to use his followers to whip up dissent, and his trusted supporters on the ground to lead the violence.

There wouldn’t be a story without a tragedy as things get out of hand, there will be winners and losers but few will be indifferent, and of course the local politician tries to shine.

There were a lot of characters, requiring concentration to follow all of the strands of this story, looking at how little it can take in our on line society to whip up violence. I would read this book again.

First Published in French by Levi in 2020.

*** my translation

The quotes as read in French before translation

Le cerveau de Sam anticipe à toute vitesse. Hors de question qu’elle lui laisse cette opportunité, puis le regarde achever sa démonstration, redoutablement efficace, balançant au passage une petite phrase du genre: « À un moment, il faut savoir en découdre. On va pas se l’jouer pensionnat chic, réveil en douceur et compagnie! » Phrase au qu’elle se dépêcherait de traduire par: « qu’est-ce que tu fous, Baydar, plantée là, à lui susurrer des petits mots doux à l’oreille! »

Comme tout le monde sur Twitter, Camille court après la popularité et les followers. D’ailleurs, s’inscrire sur un réseau social sans set objectif vous reléguerait très vite au rang de citoyen de troisième classe, un Invisible, un Gueux, condamné à un séjour prolongé dans la cale parmi les rats et les autre oubliés.

Mariette Navarro ‘Ultramarins’

—Captain, the pump seems to be adjusting its rhythm, it’s doing it to…..well to, don’t take me for a fool, to play music. Captain, do you hear me?
—I don’t take you for a fool.
—A regular rhythm, changing with the weather. What’s unbelievable is that it doesn’t always slow down. If there was a failure, it would slow down. But here, no, sometimes it speeds up too.

This book, my third read for the Prix du Roman de Rochefort 2022, has a mystical theme, a cargo ship with a disreet female captain and a skeleton crew is crossing the Atlantic Ocean. In this ultra connected world where cargo ships and their proress are tracked by satelite, the captain takes the unheard of decision to stop the ship and to let all of the crew except herself, lowered in boats, go for a swim. No other ship comes near them in this time and the captain intends to make up for lost time before arriving at their destination. All takes place as imagined but there seems to be some doubt about the number of crew members, weren’t there only 20 who went swimming?

They laugh.
But all of they are thinking of the number, 21, at the strangeness of the sound of this number. It should be said that there are a lot of new, very young, ones this time, you can mix them up, they look the same these young muscular boys who thought they were going to discover America or conquer the world.****

Slowly the story takes on it’s mysterious form, firstly with the mysterious 21st passenger and then in the weather with the sensitive captain accepting the strangeness as first in this tropical area a mist descends upon them:

As if she had to feel it, feel it through her skin to understand what is happening to her, she pulls the metal door towards herself and exits. She wants to feel the consistency of the mist, to know it’s temperature. There, that’ll be her swim.****

And then, as illustrated in the opening quote, the ship itself seems to take on the mystical shape of the story, could it be the 22nd crew member?

A short poetical story, advancing at the slow but unstoppable speed of the ship itself into the unreal.

First Published in french as “Ultramarins” in 2021, by Quidam
*** my translation

The quotes as read in French before translation

Comme s’il fallait en passer, toujours en passer par la peau pour comprendre ce qui lui arrive, elle tire vers elle la porte métallique et sort. Elle veut sentir la consistance de cette brume, et connaitre la température. voilà, ce sera sa baignade à elle.

Ils rient.
Mais tous ils pensent à ce nombre, 21, à l’étrangeté du son de ce nombre. Il faut dire qu’il y a beaucoup de nouveaux cette fois, de très jeunes, on s’y perd, ils se resemblent, ces petits gars musclés qui croyaient qu’ils allaient découvrir l’Amérique ou conquérir le monde.

—Commandante, on dirait que la pompe ajuste son tempo, qu’elle en joue, pour faire…… pour faire, ne me prends pas pour un fou, pour faire de la musique. Commandante, vous me recevez?
—Je ne vous prends pas pour un fou.
—Un rythme régulier, qui varie avec le temps. Ce qui est incroyable, c’est que ça ne ralentit pas toujours. Si c’était une panne, ça devrait ralentir. Mais là, non, parfois ça accélère aussi.

Gabrielle Massat ‘Trente grammes’

Quai du Polar 2022: Books shortlisted for the readers prize, Book read Number 6

Gabrielle Massat : Trente grammes (Éditions du Masque)

The truth is, Yannick, that you dont want to see us kill each other, right? Aslanov is like a father to you, and me, I’m the love of your life. From your point of view we’re in a Shakespearian drama.***

I’ll keep this short, Yannick, who works for a russian mafia person, Aslanov, handling his money laundering through works of Art scheme is found by his lover Phoenix, part Ouzbek, part Russian in a near critical state after being force fed 30 grammes of paracetamol, to make it look like a “suicide”. so here are the two charachters from the opening quote.
Yannick, then, is a main character who, after a liver transplant, drinks, takes drugs and seeks out a different partner each night for “wild” sex. Yannick’s body is rejecting his second liver, if you ask me his second liver should be rejecting Yannick! Well last years “detective” was blind. How about sex with the detective as here:

I can’t decide if I should be happy or worried about your invitation. Then I remembered your appetite for oral sex and decided to be overjoyed. Yannick looks her over, amused. To be more accurate, the climbing hall isn’t the lie that Boussaïdi serves up to her husband and her two adolescent kids to justify her absences, only a part of the truth:***

Yannick’s brother, Olivier is wheel chair bound after a car accident and his lover Phoenix works as Aslanov’s assassin. After selling a stolen “Bacon” to Mboyo, the nigerian Drug queen of Toulouse, Yannick comes up with the idea of getting a fake painted, authenticised and destroyed, enter Darya, russian of course, who inhabits the painter in order to create the fakes. here this means Francis Bacon, a very disturbed painter.

One evening he receives a short sharp SMS from Olivier telling him that Antoine Riva had accepted his invitation to the Opening Night. At the time, Yannick could no longer remember why he had been so set on meeting up with the Expert, then it came back to him, and he gets another crazy message from Darya/Francis and says to himself that he’ll come back to it later.***

Enough! This was a long book, and as improbable as last year’s, The taste of my mother’s lipstick, This book really did not please me, I like my crime with a dash of credibility, hope they stop choosing the same authors for multiple years…..

First Published in French as “Trente grammes” in 2021 by Éditions du Masque.
*** My translation

The quotes as read in French before translation

La réalité, Yannick, c’est que tu ne veux pas nous voir nous entre-tuer, n’est-ce pas? Aslanov est un père pour toi, et moi, je suis l’amour de ta vie. De ton point de vue, on est en plein drame shakespearien.

Je n’arrivais pas à décider si je devais me réjouir ou m’inquiéter de ton invitation. Puis je me suis souvenue de ton appétence pour le sexe oral et j’ai décidé de me réjouir. Yannick la détaille, amusé. Pour être tout à fait juste, la salle d’escalade n’est pas le mensonge que Boussaïdi sert à son mari et ses deux ados pour justifier ses absences, seulement une partie de la vérité:

Un soir, il reçoit un SMS laconique d’Olivier lui annonçant qu’Antoine Riva a accepté l’invitation à son vernissage. Sur le coup, Yannick ne se rappelle plus pourquoi il voulait tant rencontrer l’expert, puis ça lui revient, et il reçoit un autre message délirant de Darya/Francis et se dit qu’il verra ça plus tard.

Olivier Bordaçarre ‘Appartement 816’

Quai du Polar 2022: Books shortlisted for the readers prize, Book read Number 3

Olivier. Bordaçarre: Appartement 816 (L’Atalante)

I’m 1m71; I weigh roughly 75 kilos; I was born on the 2nd of November 1989 at 7.30 in the morning; I live at number 9 rue Emmanuel-Bronstin; I’m 41 years old; I wear size 41 shoes; my Sanipass number is 1891178283712 33; according to my bill from Ravi, I’ve eaten 81 125 gram tins of tuna (10.12 kgs) and 50 750 gram tins of chick peas (37.5 kgs) since the start of the Total General Isolation. That’s to say one tin of tuna every two days for six and a half months; one tin of chick peas every four days.

Didier Martin, simple accountant seems to be holding it all together, even if he is writing his diary in small print on the wall of his apartment where he lives with his wife Karin, his adolescent son Jérémy and his dog. He had to go through his diary to be sure of the facts, France is entering its 30th straight month of isolation for its inhabitants, the last six months have been IGT, Total General Isolation, that is to say Didier, his family and his dog have not been able to leave their apartment at all for the last six months. The detail in his diary entries concerning himself and his diet illustrated in the opening quote tells us something of the strain he is under and the following quote tells us of how his mind is telling him that isolation is normal, maybe even beneficial to fight against….loneliness.

You have to accept the evidence, living with your times is necessarily living without movement. Without flow we can do everything with a simple internet connection. It’s exactly what is happening with Rezo isn’t it? Aren’t we in touch with our friends, our families? We can see each other, talk to each other, exchange information, help each other get over problems. Thanks to the virus, digital connections have replaced all of our actions from everyday life and saved people from loneliness.***

Food is delivered by drones, which also ensure the rules are followed and waste is evacuated in plastic bags without human intervention. But as you can imagine the situation in a strain on interpersonal relations within the family, his son Jérémy is an asshole, his wife doesn’t always agree with him and his dog pisses and shits on the balcony floor that he has to clean up every time ( why only him you might ask):

I wouldn’t mind making other efforts, write inside our kitchen cupboard doors, for instance, or on the closet walls behind the shoes, but, when I propose something that goes a little in her sense looks at me silently and the walks off. Discussion is impossible. I asked her, then, once and for all (and Im writing it down in black and white today), not to shout any more. She’s free to express herself, she can criticise me as she wishes, I’m not totally opposed to dialogue, but without shouting. Without shouting. Otherwise. It just isn’t possible. We wont be able to carry on like that. The three of us live together in this apartment, we can’t do that without rules.***

Didier does some pretty normal things under the circumstances and evacuates the body parts in the plastic waste bags. At the end of the IGT it would seem that a large number of people in France are “missing”.

A book with a certain humour, the deliveries being taken over by a company named after the largest river in North America, Mississippi, for instance. A more interesting read than I had at first imagined but again this would not be my choice for the winner.

First Published in French as “Appartement 816″ in 2021 by L’Atalante.
*** My translation

The quotes as read in French before translation

Je mesure 1 mètre et 71 centimètres; je pèse 75 kilogrammes environ; je suis né le 2 novembre 1989 à 7 heures 30 minutes; j’habite au numéro 9 de la rue Emmanuel-Bronstin; j’ai 41 ans; je fais du 42 de pointure; mon numéro de SaniPass est le 1891178283712 33; d’après les factures récapitulatives du site Ravi, j’ai mangé 81 boîtes de thon de 125g (10,12 kg) et 50 boîtes de pois chiches de 750g (37,5 kg) depuis le début de l’Isolement Général Total. C’est-à-dire une boîte de thon tous les deux jours pendant six mois et demi une boîte de pois chiches tous les quatre jours.

Il faut forcément se rendre à l’évidence. Vivre avec son temps, c’est vivre désormais sans mouvement. Sans circulation. On peut tout faire grâce à une simple connexion Internet. C’est bien ce qui se passe au niveau de Rezo, non? Est-ce qu’on n’est pas en lien avec ses amis, sa famille? On peut se voir, se parler, échanger des informations, s’aider à surmonter un problème. Grâce au virus, le numérique a pris le relais sur l’ensemble des actions de la vie courante et sauve les gens de leur solitude.

Je veux bien faire d’autres efforts, écrire à l’intérieur des portes des placards de la cuisine, par exemple, ou sur les murs du cagibi derrière les chaussures, mais, quand je fais une proposition qui irait un peu dans son sens, Karine me regarde sans rien dire et elle s’en va. Quand je fais un pas en avant, elle me fauche. Comme elle l’a toujours fait. Elle s’en va. La discussion est impossible. Je lui ai demandé, donc, une bonne fois pour toutes (et je l’écris aujourd’hui noir sur blanc) de ne plus crier. Elle est libre de s’exprimer, peut tout à fait critiquer ce que je fais, je ne suis pas fermé au dialogue, mais sans crier. Sans crier. Sinon, ça ne va pas être possible. On ne va pas pouvoir continuer sur ce ton. On vit à trois dans cet appartement, cela ne peut pas se passer dans ces conditions.

Max Izambard ‘Marchands de mort subite’

Quai du Polar 2022: Books shortlisted for the readers prize, Book read Number 2

Max Izambard: Marchands de mort subite (Editions Rouergue)

Anne had disappeared in one of the most unstable parts of the planet. During the Christmas Eve meal, she had presented him with a comprehensive view of all of the different forces present in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, before concluding that she would have to begin all over again in a year’s time because of the alliances, the territories controlled and the front lines were forever changing.***

Here we have a political thriller set in central Africa, Uganda and its border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The background is the Genocide in Rwanda, and the more or less autonomous regions at the east of the DRC, regions full of gold mines, controlled by warring groups and foreign countries, chief amongst them Uganda. So if you want your thriller to inform you, within the bounds of fiction then this is it:

But what I’ve read is that, you would need to prove, supplying referencing documents, that the gold refined and exported came excusively from certified mines, with no links to armed groups. In other words Gold must not feed conflicts. That’s without doubt the problem holding back Muller, because certified mines in the Congo, you can count on the fingers of one hand.***

Ann, a young French journalist with a conscience has been investigating gold trafficking in the Congo, firstly from Uganda and then she goes missing as she tries to investigate from the eastern Congo. When her father turns up to try to find her the background is, as I mentioned, interesting and the story is well told. At the Embassy, there is the careerist Ambasadress, not wanting to be involved “I’ve heard she is close to the President. Same year at ENA. A real Mafia”. The alcoholic Consul who knows something but drinks to forget, the ex-military security officer “his assured muscular stance with his chest slightly puffed out, perpetualy stood to attention, unconsciously giving away his military training”. Alas all a little too much of a caricature for me. The real interest for me comes from the African side, the journalists and students, the military loyal only to itself and the power struggle within Uganda with the president’s power coming from the smuggled gold which he couldn’t allow to be interrupted and the smugglers he must protect. What role did the French embassy have in protecting the Ugandan President?

I enjoyed the read and would love to see the film.

First Published in French as “Marchands de mort subite” in 2021 by Editions Rouergue.
*** My translation

The quotes as read in French before translation

Anne avait disparu dans l’un des endroits les plus instables de la planète. Lors du réveillon de Noël, elle lui avait dressé un tableau complet des forces en présence dans l’est de la République démocratique du Congo, avant de conclure dans un sourire qu’elle devrait recommencer son explication dans un an étant donné que les alliances, les territoires sous contrôle et les lignes de front changeaient en permanence.

d’après ce que j’ai pu lire, il faut pouvoir prouver, documents à l’appui, que l’or raffiné et exporté provient uniquement de mines certifiées, sans lien avec des groupes armés. En d’autres termes, l’or ne doit pas alimenter de conflits. C’est sans doute là-dessus que bute Müller, car des mines d’or certifiées au Congo, on les compte sur les doigts d’une seule main.

Frédérique Boyer ‘Le lièvre’

I knew he was lieing. But I wanted to believe him. His voice had all the reassurance of a warrior who had suffered a terrible setback and was looking for revenge. And it would take the time it would take. img_0259He had long been locked in the room of lost chances. Life was a dangerous game. There were only a fews hours left for him to find the key to free himself.***

This book, my seventh read for the Prix du Roman de Rochefort 2021, a relatively short book with the narrator revisiting an events in his childhood as one of his parents neighbours who lived above them befriended the narrator who needed to leave the straightjacket of his home as he approached adolescence. His neighbour is a rough character who is supposed to have a job involving driving around the south west of France towards the end of the sixties but doesn’t actually seem to do much as he drives around with the boy in the car. The narrators description of him in the opening paragraph seems to sum him up well.

His view in his own family looking back is in a way like his view of the neighbour, the word “inexorablel seems to say that their fate is also fixed:

It wasn’t necessarily sad, or it doesn’t seem so to me these days when I see us so, and we resembled small characters from a silent movie, trying hard, to the beat of some infernal music, to repeat the mistakes without seeing them, led inexorably forward as if by a cruel joke they didn’t understand.***

He seems at one point to ask himself why he keeps mulling over these memories so many years later and the answer is in the precise words of his analysis.

Because, without a doubt, like an assassin, childhood always revisits the the scene of it’s crime.***

So what was the event that troubles him all these years later? Some thime before the police come to get the neighbour, whom he never sees again, he is taken hunting and the neighbour pushes him to shoot at a wild hare, he is retrospectively only partially taken in by the fact that his shot killed the hare, supposing that the neighbour fired in quick succesion to kill the hare. It is the carrying the hare back to their appartment block, not being able to bring it back to life and the moment that he realises that dearh is definitive that troubles him so much. This moment far more than the very public arrest of the neighbour.

A short troubling book, well written but which didn’t ring a bell for me.

First Published in french as “Le lièvre” in 2021, by Gallimard
*** my translation

The quotes as read in French before translation

Je savais qu’il mentait. Mais je voulais y croire. Sa voix avait l’assurance d’un guerrier qui aurait subi un revers terrible et promettrait de revenir se venger. Et cela prendrait le temps qu’il faudrait. Il avait depuis longtemps élu domicile dans la salle des chances perdues. La vie était un jeu dangereux. Il n’avait plus que quelques heures pour trouver la clé qui le libérerait.

Ce n’était pas forcément triste, ou ça ne l’est plus tout à fait à mes yeux aujourd’hui quand je nous revois ainsi, et que nous ressemblons alors aux petits personnages d’un film muet, appliqués sur une musique infernale à enchaîner les erreurs sans les voir, et entraînés inexorablement dans la mécanique d’un gag cruel qui leur échappe.

Parce que sans doute, comme l’assassin, l’enfance revient toujours sur les lieux de son crime.