Nostalgic thriller
There is something eminently nostalgic and, above all, moving in Welsford, first novel by Franco-Ontarian playwright and filmmaker Claude Guilmain. The geographical precision with which he recounts the neighborhood in which he spent his adolescence is accompanied by an emotional accuracy that will touch anyone who left his childhood at the turn of the 1960s. The state of mind, the friendships, the rivalries, the schoolboy humor, the facade bravery, the questions: it’s all there. With, as a bonus, a murder. Since human bones were found under the swimming pool of a house in Don Mills, a suburb of Toronto. The investigation is entrusted to chief inspector Frank Duchesne because, at the age of 15, he lived in the neighborhood and saw the said swimming pool being installed. Does he remember anything? Yes. But 50 years later, the memories are vague. Between yesterday and today, the reader revisits them with him, dives into a microcosm where “Anglos and Francos” rubbed shoulders with unequal weapons, and will be caught in a fascinating spiral.
Sonia Sarfati
Welsford
★★★ 1/2
Claude Guilmain, Speaking, Sudbury, 2023, 274 pages
A lighthouse in the Scandinavian night
There is, in Katrine Engberg’s writing, a little “Miss Marple” side which brings a thin ray of sunshine to the “Scandinavianly yours” darkness of her thrillers. A wink which can however destabilize those who discover their universe with this third title, The past must die. Because if Inspector Jeppe Kørner and his teammate, Anette Werner, are rather classic characters (although particularly endearing), they are sometimes “assisted”, in a homeopathic dose but still, by a retired literature professor who would not be out of place. not at St. Mary Mead. This time, the duo investigates the disappearance of the teenage son of a couple who runs a renowned art auction house. Did the boy run away? Was he kidnapped? It’s difficult to see clearly in this intertwining of lies and secrets… until a relentless countdown begins, in an atmosphere as heavy as it is claustrophobic. With, on the horizon, an isolated lighthouse and its enigmatic keeper.
Sonia Sarfati
The past must die
★★★ 1/2
Katrine Engberg, translated by Catherine Renaud, Fleuve noir, Paris, 2023, 395 pages
The Zombie and the Puppeteer
Published in Italian in 2015, this dark story precedes the author’s two novels already published in French (The island of souls,The illusion of evil). The only link between the three books is the presence of Commissioner Vito Strega, who is on official leave when this dismal story begins. Strega has just been suspended after accidentally shooting his partner during an intervention and he must see a psychologist before returning to duty. Except that at the police station, no one can come to terms with the horror of a series of bloody crimes committed by children aged 13 to 15; the commissioner’s assistant, Teresa, asks him to intervene and, even deeply “stunned”, Strega will discreetly carry out the investigation from the sidelines. It’s a horrible affair, as we’ve said, but the book primarily focuses on Vito Strega, who will get out of a vicious spiral by finding the person who is manipulating these young assassins. The writing is alert, introspective, but less seductive than in previous books.
Michel Bélair
The song of the innocents
★★★
Piergiorgio Pulixi, translated by Anatole Pons-Reumaux, Gallmeister, Paris, 2023, 327 pages
All fooled!
All action in Vigata! An Italian-Swedish team invaded the city to film a “future story” set in 1950. Commissioner Montalbano has difficulty seeing his city “distorted” and instead pays his attention to an enigma that was submitted to him: a series of six Super8 reels found in an attic and showing a wall, always the same, lasting around ten minutes. The films dating from the 1950s were shot, one per year, on the same day, over a period of six years; nothing moves there. But while he is racking his brains, two armed men enter a school in the city and shots are exchanged; Montalbano quickly changes priorities. Except that by digging into the two cases, the commissioner discovers that everyone has been fooled… This fresco carried by characters of touching humanity is absolutely irresistible funny and intelligent. We are all the more attached to it because, having become blind, Andrea Camilleri dictated it to his assistant Valentina Alferej.
Michel Bélair
The protective net
★★★ 1/2
Andrea Camilleri, translated by Serge Quadruppani, Fleuve Noir, Paris, 2023, 284 pages