The unthinkable…
New figurehead of the Swedish thriller, Camilla Grebe specializes in the description of cantilevered atmospheres. In all her novels, she stages hushed environments that explode before our eyes; the universes she builds one touch at a time are so realistic that their shattering can only put the world – and what we take for granted – in question. Here, it is the life of a publisher and a novelist that falls apart when the body of a young girl is found in the chalet inhabited by the two sons of the family. The two boys deny even if, as in the most classic Agatha Christie stories, the house was completely locked from the inside when the victim was discovered. But the police find no formal proof and life resumes, impossible, hellish, until, by chance, everything collapses again and the unthinkable turns out to be true. We will obviously not tell you anything more, except that you will be left with a monumental surprise.
Michael Belair
The enigma of the stuga
★★★1/2
Camilla Grebe, translated by Anna-Postel, Calmann Lévy, Paris, 2023, 475 pages
Stubborn like Don Quixote
Melchor Marin, we understood him in the first two novels of the series (Terra Alta And Independence, also at Actes Sud), is as stubborn as Don Quixote when he tackles monuments. Here, it’s even more true than usual, the former policeman turned librarian having to invest all his energy to save his daughter from the hands of a character… unassailable. It’s actually about a Swedish billionaire who has established his “Bluebeard’s Castle” – and the pleasure garden that is hidden there – in the Balearic Islands. After having bought a large part of the territory, the man gradually managed to ensure the silence of everyone: politicians, civil servants, police officers, etc. Marin will have to call on his closest friends and rely on a fallen man to succeed in bringing the truth to light. Beyond the tight plot, it is the elegant writing and the unspeakable humor of Cercas, very well rendered by a nervous translation, which make the interest of this book as of the whole series.
Michael Belair
Bluebeard’s Castle
★★★1/2
Javier Cercas, translated by Aleksandar Grujicic and Karine Louesdon, Actes Sud, Ales, 2023, 347 pages
Garbage and prejudices
Garbage takes center stage in Elizabethville. Marie-Françoise Taggart made us discover this in her first detective novel, which bore the name of this fictitious city located at the very west of Western Canada. The novelist puts it back with red ocher, which takes place in the same territory and in which characters then in the background take center stage. In order to do what must, regardless of the prejudices with which they are greeted in the spotlight. This is the case of Detective Sergeant Joyce Bell, a Métis who grew up on a reserve north of the capital. She investigates the disappearance of Aboriginal women. Found some. Often for the worse. And then there is this network of traffickers in human beings, preferably very young, who flourish in the shade of opulent houses. red ocher is a very “signed” novel in terms of writing and structure. A destabilizing, exotic, hard novel. In short, we are at Taggart like nowhere else.
Sonia Sarfati
red ocher
★★★★
Marie-Françoise Taggart, Hands Free, Montreal, 2023, 370 pages
Black like Red Light
Published by Triptyque in 2020, Brebeuf was a pretty twisted surprise signed Catherine Côté. An incursion into the Montreal of 1948, among these men returning from the European front and among the women who, in their absence, had emerged from their shadow. The soil is rich. The novelist therefore planted a suite there, women of disorderwhere we find Suzanne Gauthier, journalist at the Montreal-Morning ; her husband, Léo, returned from the Great War, only unharmed; and detective Marcus O’Malley, a friend of the couple who often speaks in the language of Shakespeare and carries on the bottle. It all begins with a murder committed in a “house of disorder”. Suzanne then discovers the situation of the women who “work” in these places. There is there to denounce, to write. To do this, convince people of power, all men. Wealth of themes, situations and characters: Catherine Côté is here in the realm of “never two without three”. A sequel is hoped/expected.
Sonia Sarfati
women of disorder
★★★1/2
Catherine Côté, VLB editor, Montreal, 2023, 389 pages