Russell James has been named “the Godfather of Noir” by Ian Rankin. Russell writes crime novels - about criminals and victims, not the cozy procedural or whodunnit. He is the editor of Great British Fictional Detectives.
Billed as a police or detective story, this prize-winning French novel is really a slow-burn thriller, a social-realist portrayal of embittered life among hard-scrabble minimal-income locals and semi-settled immigrants, all living within walking distance of the luxurious villas occupied part-time by the holidaying wealthy.
Though the locals resent these rich intruders they resent each other more.
A girl falls pregnant, is beaten by her brutal father and, when she refuses to say who made her pregnant, he seeks revenge on the man he (wrongly, of course) assumes to be the perpetrator. Menace, brutality and ignorance swamp the sharper aspirations of the few who seek to better themselves. In an area where physical strength always wins, surely the result must be inevitable?
Editor’s note:
[a] Winner of the Grand Prix de Littérature policière, 2018
[b] Translated into English by Katherine Gregor
