There
has been an election in France, and the winner of the highly tense ballot is
France’s first ever Arab candidate, Chaouch. But then, on the evening of the
election, Chaouch is shot in the head by a young muslim.
The
assailant, Krim, has received his orders from his cousin, Nazir. But Krim and
Nazir are not the only people affected by the police response. Their dragnet
hauls in all Krim and Nazir’s family, it affects the wealthy Fouad, who is also
in love with Chaouch’s daughter. This shooting makes life for the women in the
family particularly difficult. Attempted murder has ripples that affect many
more than only the immediate people involved.
The
investigating judge, Henri Wagner, has his own problems: legal, operational,
political, and, he will soon discover, with his family too, because his
daughter is involved with the attempted assassin, Krim.
This
is a book of great depth. There are a great many characters, most of whom are
quite well-depicted, although the writer does occasionally slip into
stereotypes, especially when describing police officers or judges, which rather
rankled on first reading.
However
this is not a book I could warm to. It is not, let me say, the sort of book for
which SHOTS was developed. For one thing, it is not really a crime book. Yes,
it is the story of a crime: the protagonists, the victims, those affected at
the margins are all in there, but it is not a straight story, because there is
no resolution. Why? Because this is the second in what the publisher describes
as the “St Etienne Quartet” (in one line at the end of the blurb on the back of
the book).
As
such, it is quite likely that I have missed a chunk of back story, because
presumably the first book in the series would have provided that. But I could
not see that there was a first book from the front cover, nor could I tell from
opening the book.
As
a reviewer, I tend not to look at the blurb on the back. It’s my job to read
the book, and I try to do so without bias. But as a crime reader and fan, I was
not happy or impressed to reach page 387 to see “To be continued” at the end of
the page. No resolution, no capture of guilty parties, but the reader is left
with a need to compose him or herself to waiting for the next instalment - and
the one after that - to discover what is really going on.
In
short, reading this was like reading a middle piece of the Forsyte Saga without
knowing about Fleur and Soames. And this is no Forsyte Saga, to be fair. On the
information in this book, Krim and Nazir remained flimsy characters. There is
much more effort spent in depicting the thoughts of the Arab women in their
family, but I couldn’t warm to them or even look on them as particularly
convincing. They didn’t ring true to me. I suspect the author has set out a
plotline, and now expects his characters to conform to it.
It
may well prove to be a brilliant quartet that has real substance to it. But I
read it over some time, waiting to be fired with an enthusiasm that never
materialised.
Usually
I love a book with foreign settings, different police forces, different
cultures, but this one didn’t do it for me. Perhaps it was just the fact of
reading it without realising that there was a first book in the series, but I
don’t think so.
The
proof of this was my sense of relief and expectation when I set this book aside
and instead began to read Gianrico Garofiglio’s The Cold Summer. Within
two pages I was hooked and couldn’t put the book down. It has a pace and depth
of characterisation that I felt was lacking in Savages 2.
This
is a very intriguing book that sets out a highly believable scenario that
promises much. Sadly I didn’t find that the promise materialised. My own advice
for anyone considering this book would be to get the first in the series first,
and see what you think of that.
