The thriller The black mists will certainly not contribute to a resurgence of tourism in the Faroe Islands, a Danish archipelago: the weather is terrible and the inhabitants are represented as bloodthirsty boors.
The author, the Frenchman Patrice Gain, does not err on the side of subtlety. His novel is a frontal charge against the hunting of whales and dolphins in the Faroe Islands, a traditional activity that he describes with a lot of blood and viscera.
The black mists tells the story of Raphaël Chauvet, a cellist who goes in search of his daughter Maude, who disappeared while taking part in a campaign by the organization Ocean Keeper against whale hunting. In this story, the young NGO activists are the good guys, the Faroese are the bad guys. There are quite a few inhabitants who are against hunting, but they do not dare to make their opinion known. A Faroese woman expresses, however, what many readers in Eastern Canada, who have seen NGOs and celebrities coming to condemn the seal hunt, might think: “Tell your daughter and her friends that if they want it to stop , you don’t have to come anymore. The weather and the pollution of the oceans will make the job better than them. »
It must be recognized that Patrice Gain knows how to create a disturbing, suffocating atmosphere. The plot is well done, there is no downtime. We can wonder about Raphaël’s choices, but we understand his motivations. However, the well-meaning neo-colonialism that underlies the text can end up annoying.
The black mists
Albin Michael
284 pages