Our thriller selection for the month of February

Death off the track

Two months after, in A scarf in the snow, a body was found on a cable car seat in the Åre resort, the body of a former ski champion, the country’s favorite child, was discovered in the snow, some distance from a road. Inspector Jindskog and investigator Ahlender, still mismatched but complementary, take up the necklace again. The shadows of the valley, the second title in Viveca Sten’s new series, takes place across two timelines. On the one hand, the victim’s last weeks. On the other, a few years in the life of young Rebecka, member of a sect and ostracized wife of a pastor. Despite some repetitions which weigh down the story, the Swedish novelist manages to create, through a classic plot, a powerful atmosphere, recurring characters who evolve and others, new, easy to love or hate. And, above all, she speaks — to women, but not only to them (hopefully) — about the condition of women.

Sonia Sarfati

The shadows of the valley
★★★ 1/2
Viveca Sten, translated by Amanda Postel and Anna Postel, Albin Michel, Paris, 2023, 493 pages

A beautiful lie that comes from far away

The Scottish Harriet Tyce practiced criminal law for ten years before swapping the toga for the pen. After a well-received first novel, Blood Orangeshe comes back to us with You lie like you breathe…where the lie is not what we believe. And the liar, or the liar, not the one we think. That’s the point of it. After spending a decade in the United States with her husband, Sadie returns to London. Without her partner, but with their daughter. They move into her childhood home, where she was very unhappy, and enroll the little girl in the school she attended, where she was very unhappy. For what ? We will end up understanding, after the characters have (finally) asked these questions, that it is impossible that they had not asked themselves before. Understand that, on the other side of the page, we are stamping our feet. But the way the tension rises, the atmosphere becomes stifling, the two sides are revealed, is very effective. And patience is rewarded.

Sonia Sarfati

You lie like you breathe
★★★
Harriet Tyce, translated by Johan-Frédérik Hel Guedj, Robert Laffont “The Black Beast”, Paris, 2023, 443 pages

Violently twisted

If Swedish crime writers were to be believed, they live in a country haunted by psychopathic killers. At least this is the reality on which the entire four-handed work of Lars Kepler (Alexandra and Alexander Ahndoril) is based, and this ninth investigation published in French is one of their bloodiest. It is once again Joona Linna who is called when the body of Margot Silverman, director of the NOA (Swedish police intervention force), is found horribly mutilated. Helped by his colleague Saga Bauer, Joona will set out on the trail of a serial killer, since seven other bodies dissolved in acid will soon be added. Each time, a white cartridge case is found near the remains of the victim, and we soon learn that the ninth and final bullet is reserved for Joona Linna. The plot is incredibly complex, as is the character of the killer, and the reader and investigators will not be able to grasp everything that is at stake until the very last chapter. A story as violent as it is gripping.

Michel Bélair

The spider
★★★
Lars Kepler, translated by Marianne Ségol-Samoy, Actes Sud “Black Acts”, Paris, 2024, 534 pages

A joyous delirium!

Former French border police investigator, Romain Puértolas had a resounding success with his novel The extraordinary journey of the fakir who got stuck in an IKEA wardrobe already about ten years ago. The title of his most recent work describes well the systematic and joyfully eccentric nature of the investigation he is carrying out here. The Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès affair is a sordid news item which shook French society at the start of the last decade; the alleged killer of his wife and their four children has never been found. Puértolas reports on his own research and submits several hypotheses that hold up quite strongly since he had access to all the data in the case. But what makes his new opus even more interesting is that he happily fills in the holes in the police investigation by getting involved in the story and using his fertile imagination. The quest soon turns into a trial where he himself is accused of having killed, after having found him of course, Dupont de Ligonnès with a butter knife…

Michel Bélair

How I found Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès
★★★
Romain Puértolas, Albin Michel, Paris, 2024, 281 pages

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