Seven years later Amquia first frankly captivating thriller, Éric Forbes brings his character Étienne Chénier back to life in a second title, The Fugitive, the Cop, and Bill Ballantine. And once again, we get completely caught up in the game of this bookseller who is passionate about detective novels, who looks strangely like his author… except that he is also a ruthless killer in his spare time.
“Étienne Chénier is my evil twin,” says Éric Forbes, laughing. “Indeed, he kills people, but people who deserve it, according to him!”
In this sequel, which can be read completely independently, Quebec bookseller Étienne Chénier has taken refuge in the French capital, where criminals even more dangerous than he are setting him on a mad pursuit in the heart of the 13e district of Paris, in the company of the now retired police officer Denis Leblanc.
Far from us, here, the gloomy and sordid atmospheres; the tone is rather inclined to laughter. Because if Amqui is a “dark novel with touches of humor”, born from a story of revenge, The Fugitive, the Cop and Bill Ballantine is a humorous novel with touches of darkness, according to the author. “It wasn’t supposed to be that, at first,” explains Eric Forbes. “It’s the character of Edward who tips the story into humor.”
The character of Edward is precisely the Bill Ballantine of the title, the great Scotsman from the adventures of Bob Morane who is the idol of the boy of barely 12 years old. How does he find himself mixed up in the fugitive and the cop’s escape? This is where the plot of this intrigue that starts off with a bang takes a completely unexpected turn.
“At the beginning, the novel was an escape through Paris strewn with pitfalls,” says Eric Forbes. “But an escape is banal; it’s been done often and it can be quite redundant.”
When I found this character of Edward, I didn’t even know I was going to use him. Then I decided to make him a kind of pivot and that’s when the book really took off. He becomes like the dog in the bowling game; he’s actually the star of the book.
Eric Forbes
From bookseller to novelist
Originally from Amqui and a bookseller for 30 years, Éric Forbes has long dreamed of writing a detective novel by reading his favorite authors – who are, unsurprisingly, the same ones as those of his evil alter ego. François Barcelo, Dashiell Hammett, James Ellroy, Jo Nesbo, Stieg Larsson, André Marois… “I’ve been reading detective fiction since I was about 12 years old. And my childhood readings were the readings of the character Édouard. My book is peppered with these kinds of references because they were my references,” he confides.
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, THE PRESS
Eric Forbes
But for a long time, he was “groping” more than he was writing, in his opinion. “I thought it was bad. When you’re a bookseller, you read a lot, and you read damn good books. I thought what I wrote would never be good enough to be published.”
It was a health problem that finally pushed him to write more “seriously”. But it would take him 10 years before he decided to send the manuscript ofAmqui to publishers, a bit like a message in a bottle. And even once published, he had not become a writer in his head.
Five years later, the idea behind The Fugitive, the Cop and Bill Ballantine nevertheless began to germinate.
I write instinctively; I don’t make plans, I prefer to reserve surprises for myself.
Eric Forbes
“In addition, at the end ofAmquiI was stuck in Paris; I had no intention of writing a sequel,” says Eric Forbes. Nevertheless, what he prefers to call the second volume of his “series featuring Étienne Chénier and Denis Leblanc” eventually saw the light of day.
“There will probably be a volume 3 – if I have an idea. But I’m not going to write just anything! Denis Leblanc is going to become a private investigator, so that leaves the door open. And I like that, leaving doors open,” he concludes, all smiles.
The Fugitive, the Cop and Bill Ballantine
Heliotrope
280 pages