one less,
Chrystine Brouillet
It’s hard to believe, but it’s been 40 years since Chrystine Brouillet published her first book… and here we are in front of Maud Graham’s 20th investigation! We must emphasize the importance of the author and her heroine. The Maud Graham series is an exemplary success; it has sold more than 850,000 copies, and Brouillet is a pioneer. Remember that the thriller here was in its infancy in the 1980s: it is thanks to her and Graham that the genre took root. Hat ! one less (Druide, October 5), a 20th investigation for Maud Graham. Dark. Painful. Focused on the upsurge in violence against women during the closed doors of the COVID-19 pandemic. When a woman is murdered in the Old Capital, “Graham finds that this feminicide hides another reality, just as violent and disturbing. […] The aggressiveness of some spouses feeds the hatred of other men lurking behind their computer screens. An observation that is unfortunately verified too often.
A wonderful world,
Paul Colize
Colize is also an exceptionally gifted author, who is too little known. In his last novels, he tackled a series of extremely delicate if not pointed themes, such as the drift of drugs (Back-Up) and those of the Nazis (A long moment of silence), illicit trafficking, manipulation and appearances (A day like any other), insanity, condoned violence, rape in all its forms and war crimes (All the violence of men). He is a writer who does not shy away from any audacity and who thrives on intensity. His latest opus, A wonderful world(Éditions Hervé Chopin, in bookstores), features a beefy and somewhat gruff Belgian soldier. We are at the very beginning of the 1970s, and his mission is to accompany a stranger and do whatever she asks of him. The back cover speaks of a “tense face-to-face […] relying on the eddies of history [et rappelant] that, if we do not have the power to change the past, it is up to us to influence the present”. Not less.
Godmann’s children,
Maureen Martineau
After a long stay at the Théâtre Parminou – where she probably developed her strong penchant for social causes and the denunciation of institutionalized injustice – Maureen Martineau began to write highly noticed thrillers. Of the A church for the birds (Héliotrope, 2015), we spoke of a writing distilling a “David Lynch atmosphere, troubled, unhealthy”. Then, his second great success, The Match City (2018), a kind of rant about eco-terrorism and land speculation, denounced the overall relationship between the federal government and indigenous populations. We also met there for the fourth time his favorite investigator, Judith Allison, whom we find in Godmann’s children (VLB, September 12). Here, Allison investigates the suspicious death of a certain Viktor Godmann, a former psychiatrist, whom no one seems to regret. She would find herself “immersed in the most hideous pages of Canadian medical history.”
A blood red summer,
Wayne Arthurson
Arthurson is an Alberta Métis — his mother is French Canadian and his father is Cree — journalist and novelist. He established himself a few years ago with his character of Leo Desroches, also a field journalist in a major Edmonton daily. Desroches is a special being: devoured by the passion for gambling, he lost everything, wife, child, job before becoming homeless and sinking even further by living on the streets. But he gradually recovered by finding the path of journalism, and we have already seen him lead two investigations involving both indigenous communities and destitute beings overwhelmed by fate. In A blood red summer (Alire, October 27), Desroches sees a young Aboriginal man succumb to an overdose in a poor neighborhood of Edmonton; he even sees white pebbles falling from the victim’s pockets. When he learns that the young man worked in a mine, that he never took drugs and that the white pebbles are in fact rough diamonds, he begins to dig the case.
Malicious killings,
Thomas King
Thumps Dreadfulwater is a marked character. A former police investigator turned photographer, he experienced an unspeakable tragedy that led him to abandon the pursuit of criminals, to leave California and to settle in Chinook, Montana, near the Canadian border. But Thumps has the gift of finding himself, repeatedly and without ever really wanting to, in complicated police investigations. Here, he acts as an “expert” in a reality show, where he comments on the suspicious elements of the death of a wealthy old lady. When the producer of the series dies in the same way as the old woman, he once again becomes the sheriff’s assistant who must settle the two investigations. Thomas King’s humor and his great knowledge of Aboriginal cultures have made it a must, and this fourth investigation, Malicious killings (October 27), should once again highlight his great talent. A masterstroke from Alire editions, it must once again be underlined.