A pacy, intense thriller that holds the reader in a vice-like grip throughout. Three parts, three aspects of a complicated tale of kidnap, murders and abuse with a strange twist that leaves us begging for more. This is the second of the Commandant Verhoeven series, others of which are promised in English translation from the spring of 2014. Lamaitre is a master storyteller who won the Prix Goncourt last year for Au revoir là-haut the translation of which I await eagerly. If that is not available by the summer, I’ll just have to read it in French when on holiday. Together with Penguin’s new translations of Georges Simenon’s Inspector Maigret novels, all 75 of them at the rate of one a month, it looks like French noir is mounting a rearguard action in the face of the recent advances of Scandi-noir and Mediterranean noir.
Crime fiction throughout Europe seems to be in a very healthy state, even in Britain. But one can’t help but wonder if many of these books are written specifically with the intention of transposition onto the small screen. In Wales we are currently enjoying the television series Hinterland, set in Aberystwyth and its surrounding countryside. It is an English translation of a Welsh production previously shown on SAC. Nevertheless, with its snippets of Welsh language, and its dour and damaged hero, Matthias, it has all the features of Scandi-noir with their occasional lapses into English and a dour and damaged hero, be it Wallender or Lund or Salander. Curiously, Hinterland is rumoured to have been sold for transmission in Scandinavia. Such is the dominance of our screens and bookstalls by crime fiction that, although I enjoy consuming it, I can’t help hoping that authors will develop a new and startling genre as an alternative to the now rather formulaic diet of crime, crime and more crime.
No comments:
Post a Comment