The name “polar” is like wine. There are very good, average and very bad. Let’s be clear, we opted for the first category in terms of the pleasure we took in reading them. A necessarily subjective choice which, without a doubt, will be challenged because we will have forgotten such an author, such a text which will not have been unworthy, but will not have caught our attention. We are also convinced that the choice of a thriller is, as with wine, a matter of taste. Some prefer them full-bodied, others fruity; some like the originality and the pleasure of discovery, others the flavor of a wine already appreciated in previous years. It is for this reason that we have chosen to present this selection according to an atypical classification developed not by genre of texts, but by broad categories of readers.
Les Mares-Noires, by Jonathan Gaudet (ed. Belfond, 176 p., €20.)
THE discovery of the new school year is this first black novel by a Quebec author published by Belfond. Barely 200 pages, but a dense text with a remarkable sense of ellipse and an oppressive atmosphere from the start. The chronicler cannot say too much for fear of revealing what makes the salt of the novel. Simply that it is about a mother, a man and his daughter. From a small town in central Quebec surrounded by nature, which, in the heart of its forest, is home to a nuclear power plant. From the beginning of the novel, anxiety dominates. A young woman in an isolated house goes from one room to another, she feeds and then puts her baby to sleep when, suddenly, it is announced on television that there have been explosions in the nuclear power plant where her son works. husband. Did he get out? When will he be back? We won’t say more. The author masters the economy of words, the reader guesses more than he is told. The tour de force is such that the last pages swallowed, it is necessary to reread the first ones, traveled too quickly no doubt, to embrace the entirety of the story. Not classic detective, but big black.
The Sniper, the President and the Triad, by Chang Kuo-Li (ed. Gallimard, trans. from Chinese by Alexis Brossollet, 448 p., €21.)
We missed the first opus of this great Taiwanese series when it was released. Too much to read, not in the mood to open The Sniper, his wok and his gun. On the occasion of the paperback release (Folio) of the latter and a second in large format, we (re)discovered these original books that will delight lovers of thrillers from the other side of the world. Once is not custom, we are in Taiwan, in the lowlands of local politics, immersed among corrupt officials and in the heart of the triads that revolve around. Fast-paced adventure fans will love it too. The main character is a sniper trained by a mysterious mentor who draws his strategies from past military victories. It shoots, it fights but with intelligence. Finally, in his spare time, the sniper excels in another activity, cooking fried rice in a wok. Every meeting, every street detour is an opportunity to talk about Taipei dishes and specialties – spring onion pancakes, shrimps, meats, fried rice. We salivate, we smell the smells through the paper. We finish these tasty novels, full of humor and action by looking for the address of a Taiwanese restaurant nearby.
The Trophy, by Gaea Schoeters (ed. Actes Sud, trans. from Flemish by Benoît-Thaddée Standaert, 288 p., €23.)
Disturbing, fascinating, successful. Here are three adjectives the impression that dominates when reading this first thriller by a Belgian novelist. Nothing but very classic in the first pages, a rich American pays dearly for a hunt in Africa. Its goal ? To bring back the trophy he does not yet possess, a black rhinoceros, to his wife who shares with him the incessant quest for the exceptional thrill. But the novel does not stop at this first stratum. Little by little, he takes us deeper into African nature and into a plot that questions many certainties. The decor becomes more and more alive as our convictions fade away. Who hunts what game? Can money repair all of the colonialist actions of yesterday and their legacies of today? Does the white man know as much as he thinks? The plot is impeccable and far exceeds that of a simple thriller. A very nice discovery, therefore, despite a theme that can put off at first sight.
A thriller that questions our certainties.
Events South
You know who, by Jakub Szamalek (ed. Métailié, trans. from Polish by Kamil Barbarski, 464 p., €23.)
Dear reader, after closing this book, you will never look at your electronic devices as before. Know it, your phone, your computer can become your enemies, your worst weakness. Jakub Szamalek signs here a very good first thriller, preceded by an unambiguous warning: “This is not a science fiction novel.” You know who, this is how the messages left by an informant for a young journalist are signed. Accustomed to various people facts, gifted with the buzz on social networks, she deals one day with the strange car accident of which a television star is the victim. Because she prides herself on conducting a “real” investigation, she finds herself trapped, targeted in turn by social networks and dark web experts who interfere in her private life via the electronic devices that monitor her. accompany everywhere. First part of a trilogy where we will find the same heroine, You know who is a well-crafted novel and an exciting dive into two little-known universes. That of the geeks who explore our underground lives and are capable of anything. And that of a form of journalism where there is no question of working half a day to find out whether it is better to use a subordinate clause or a present gerund, where the essential thing is to be the first.
A small society, by Noëlle Renaude (ed. Rivages, 322 p., €21.90.)
Almost everything is in the title. It is a very strange little society that Noëlle Renaude describes to us. Apparently, it is a large bourgeois house where a mentally handicapped teenager lives and a woman who we are not sure is his mother. And an unfortunately classic news item when the girl who lives next door is kidnapped by the young man. But Noëlle Renaude does not stop at the obvious. It is the atmosphere that interests him. She weaves her web in one direction, then in the other. She takes us to an employee of the food factory who, from her window opposite, spends her days observing the big house; with Giselle, the social worker, a hitman installed nearby at an old lady with a dog and many others. Each advances with its share of quirkiness and fantasy. We wander, we get lost. We end up falling back on our feet after reading a text that is unlike any other. An identical impression of strangeness already dominated in Les Abattus, the author’s first novel, with the same evocative writing and this sense of the absurd. In two texts, a work apart in the work of Noëlle Renaude, playwright above all, takes shape.
The Illusion of Evil, by Piergiorgio Pulixi (ed. Gallmeister, translated from the Italian by Anatole Pons-Reumaux, 608 p., €25.90.)
We liked The Island of Souls, a first dive into the world of Sardinian Piergiorgio Pulixi. We had discovered his duo of dented cop heroines and a land of Sardinia with strong traditions and disconcerting landscapes. His second book is probably less original than the first. The decor oscillates this time between Milan and Cagliari and we follow an investigation featuring many new technologies. But the text retains two characteristics that make it a safe bet for this fall: a trio of ultra-endearing characters, now with the added bonus of a very talented and handsome Milanese criminologist, but with his share of injuries who has nothing to envy to his two partners. Basically, the theme raises a lot of questions about our societies and what underpins them. On the form, a zest of Sardinian language and some cooking recipes make us want to immediately take a plane ticket for Italy. Finally, the effectiveness of the plot and the fluid writing make it a page turner as effective as the first.
Exciting diving in Sardinia.
Gallmeister
Black Bird, by James Keene and Hillel Levin (ed. Sonatine, trans. from English by Fabrice Pointeau, 288 p., €21.)
Incredible story that the one told in this testimony. James Keen is a drug trafficker facing a heavy sentence when contacted by a prosecutor and federal authorities. The deal is simple: if he agrees to be transferred to another prison, if he manages to become friends with a man who is suspected of being a serial killer and if he makes him say where he has left the body of one of his victims, he will be entitled to a reduced sentence. He accepts in the hope of seeing his sick father again. The book, adapted in series by another master of the noir novel Dennis Lehane for Apple TV, is not very fluid, it is peppered with quotes not always useful and the end in the form of good morals will annoy some. But basically, no matter, it tells us a lot about the methods of the American police to make people talk, about the weight of the mafias in North American prisons, about the medical experiments carried out in prison. We are immersed in the world of serial killers which definitely has nothing to do with that of the Silence of the Lambs. Here, the cops are wrong and the pain of the parents of the victims explodes. We read it less for the suspense that underlies it (will James Keen succeed in his mission?) than for the vision it gives of a world that is all the more fascinating for being real.
Ephemeral Masks, by Donna Leon (ed. Calmann-Lévy, trans. from English by Gabriela Zimmermann, 342 p., €21.90.)
It’s hard not to have already opened a book by Donna Leon featuring Commissioner Brunetti, it’s already the 30th. As in the previous ones, we settle down for a few hours at the Quaestor of Venice. We stroll alongside the melancholy policeman in the different districts of the city, Dorsoduro, Giudecca… with a taste of deja vu. We have lunch with him on a pumpkin risotto and a breaded cutlet. We find familiar characters in the office, the deputy prosecutor Patta, the assistant Elettra, the deputy Griffoni, a Neapolitan who clashes with the Venetians of the north. Nothing unpleasant. On the contrary. Because the American Donna Leon has the skill to spice up her plots with contemporary issues: ecology, trafficking in women, the threats posed by tourism to Venice. We stroll through this detective story which features two injured young American women, discreetly dropped off at the hospital by two city boys, as if on a Sunday walk. We know the decor and the characters, the text just changes a little, we let ourselves be carried away and that’s good.
Darwyne, by Colin Niel (ed. Rouergue Noir, 288 p., €21.50.)
The very successful return of Colin Niel to Guyana.
Rouergue
Undoubtedly, our favorite of this selection. Because it renews the genre and contrasts with current production. Because it plays with the codes of the fantastic while remaining authentically polaresque until the last line. We know Colin Niel’s attachment to Guyana where he had already set his first novels (Les Hammocks de carton, Obia…). After a remarkable detour through the metropolitan countryside with Only the Beasts, adapted for the cinema, he plunges back into the invasive and distressing nature that surrounds Cayenne. He tells us the story of Darwyne, 10 years old, slightly handicapped, who lives with his mother and repeated stepfathers. Everything is going well until a young social services employee in need of a child comes to stick her nose in their business following a denunciation. As the pages go by, the obvious roles at the beginning become blurred, we no longer know what judgment to have on each other. Only remains the desire to protect the child who keeps taking refuge in the forest to escape the gaze that humans have on him. Colin Niel’s pen slips through the vegetation which so easily loses men to mislead the reader. It’s fluid, it devours and we remain speechless at the outcome.
