The past as a puzzle
The policeman who drinks too much, smokes, eats badly, is divorced and depressed… he, there, can get dressed in front of the heroine of Ilaria Tuti. Commissioner Teresa Battaglia has tasted it in the past, her present is worse and her future, blacker than black: her gray areas, those she thinks she wants to forget, are truly fading away. Along with everything else. In other words, and among other ailments, Teresa struggles with early Alzheimer’s. Hello, melodrama? No, we are elsewhere. ash girl, the fourth volume in the series, the strongest too, is based on a solid investigation coupled with a poignant piece of life. Always on edge against her superior, but well surrounded by her peers, the commissioner answers the call of serial killer Giacomo Mainardi. He has something to tell her. They are thus projected 27 years back, when their lines of life (and death) crossed; and further still, at IVe century. Fascinating, harsh and deeply (in)human.
Sonia Sarfati
ash girl
★★★★
Ilaria Tuti, translated from Italian by Johan-Frédérik Hel Guedj, Robert Laffont, Paris, 2023, 403 pages
The family grows
There is this way, among the authors of whodunnits, of constructing a world placed on the margins of the plot (here, a village; there, an extended family; elsewhere, an island) which takes on texture over the course of the investigations and that readers are eager to find for reasons that are not necessarily related to the plot. So does Lisa Gardner, whose books, it’s no secret, make non-fans “roll their eyes”. But for those who are, she is bringing together a fascinating community of poked women in search of justice and normalcy. Thus, to FBI agent Kimberley Quincy and Commander DD Warren was recently added Flora Dane, sequestered in a box for 472 days by a killer. A mute teenager joins them in At last sight, where it all begins with the discovery of a mass grave near a small Georgia town that only looks idyllic. It is, as always, effective. But quickly forgotten.
Sonia Sarfati
At first sight
★★★
Lisa Gardner, translated from English (United States) by Cécile Deniard, Albin Michel, Paris, 2023, 473 pages
Times of crisis
Difficult, since February 24, 2022, to enter a book that bears such a title and whose beginnings take place in the USSR, an eternity ago. However, the story of this oligarch that we see born with the famous “privatizations” of the Yeltsin era is well worth dwelling on. Especially since Grigori Yurdine had become a banker and was living in London, in the heart of the financial city, when the financial crisis hit. subprime in 2008. A billionaire at the head of a powerful conglomerate, he will play the role of white knight with an old English bank on the verge of bankruptcy… but will be caught up in his past when COVID-19 hits. It’s a fascinating, breathtaking story, carried by real endearing characters, a politico-financial thriller as we rarely see. Obviously written by an insider well versed in the mysteries of high finance and the Russian swamp. Especially since the author’s name is a pseudonym — the book is written in French — and rumors are circulating at breakneck speed…
Michael Belair
Oligarch
★★★1/2
Elena B. Morozov, Grasset, Paris, 2022, 521 pages
The price of peace
Le Carré was finishing this book when he passed away in 2020, and it was his son who took care of finishing up the final details of what appears to be a thinly veiled critique of the very notion of “Secret Services”. . Amazing novel. Who was ready — leading the son to say he felt like he was painting eyebrows at Mona Lisa by editing the story — but Le Carré probably kept a little embarrassment. It’s a classic story, as complex as it is complicated; it depicts an “operator” who took a bloody bath of reality in the Balkans during the 1990s. “Florian” has since chosen peace… with all that that implies of risks and dangers for a member of the “. The finesse of John le Carré’s writing means that it will take the reader a long time to guess that a spy is hiding in the portrait he draws of this endearing old man now being hunted by His Majesty’s agents. . And if the actions of “Florian” had to lead to questioning everything…
Michael Belair
The spy who loved books
★★★1/2
John le Carré, translated from English by Isabelle Perrin, Seuil, Paris 2022, 231 pages