The Prix France Bleu l’Histoire en Polar prize rewards a novel published in the first half of 2022 by Editions 10/18 which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year
For this 3rd edition, 5 polars were in competition : “The Metro Crime” by Christian Di Scipio, “The Republic of the Weak” by Gwenaël Bulteau, “The Quest for the Orphanus” by Viviane Moore, “”Five Pearls for Two Queens” by Olivier Seigneur and “Sleep of Ashes” by Xavier Boissel.
From the year 1000 to the 21st century, the various intrigues lead us from the Mont Blanc massif and its buried treasures to the Court of Louis XIV with his morganatic marriage, to the depths of underworld circles and his sordid crimes which strike at the innocence of the childhood through seemingly inexplicable because impossible crimes! From Paris to Lyon via the Ardèche Cévennes and the Alps, without forgetting Versailles, these investigations took us back in time.
Chaired by Jean-Emmanuel Casalta, director of France Bleu, the jury was made up of 13 listeners selected from applications submitted on francebleu.fr, journalists from France Bleu and booksellers belonging to the network of Booksellers Together. All share the same passion for their regional heritage and its historical perspective…
“The Republic of the Weak” by Gwenaël Bulteau, big winner of the 2022 edition
On January 1, 1898, a ragpicker discovers the body of a child on the slopes of the Croix Rousse. Very quickly, we identify a kid from the popular neighborhoods that his parents have been looking for for several weeks in vain. Commissioner Jules Soubielle is in charge of the investigation in this Lyon under great tension on the eve of the elections. The voices of an unleashed nationalism, of an anti-Semitism exacerbated by the Dreyfus affair and of a nascent socialism are raised. In the confused rustling of this end of the century, the police will have to penetrate into the intimacy of these workers and small traders, hear the voices of their wives and children to reveal the flaws of this republic who nevertheless claims that she is there to defend the weak.
With this first historic thriller, Gwenaël Bulteau, with a pen as poetic as it is vibrantmakes us hear the clamor of a world where justice is struggling to impose its rules, in the course of an investigation that will bring down the masks one by one.