Review by Booklist Review
The launchpad for this challenging novel is familiar. Police detective Jacques le Garrec, in limbo after accusations of brutality, is asked to investigate the murder of a teenage girl. The year is 1959, the setting is a little town in Brittany on the northwest tip of France, still hurting from the aftereffects of the German occupation. Le Garrec's investigation into pure bestiality, evil unchained is distracted by an inquiry into his actions when he was a colonial officer in Algeria. What did he do to a girl in his custody? Is his obsession with the murdered girl a way of atoning for an earlier crime? On the way to finding out, readers will find themselves immersed in great swatches of splendiferous prose, which will strike some as worth the journey in itself and others as a roadblock in the way of the story. The beautiful turns of phrase stall the narrative and, as they pile atop one another, start calling attention to themselves rather than the people, places, and events they're meant to describe. Still, as an effort to blend literary style with crime-fiction content, the novel, while not entirely successful, should prove satisfying to those more interested in the former than the latter.--Crinklaw, Don Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
On Dec. 12, 1959, Capt. Jacques le Garrec, the narrator of British author Brydon's provocative and unsettling first novel, returns in disgrace to his hometown of Sainte-Élisabeth in Brittany. He's accused of committing a terrible crime in Algeria, where he has spent the last two years in the French army intelligence services interrogating Algerian insurgents. While le Garrec, a former police detective and WWII Resistance fighter, awaits trial, an old acquaintance asks him to look into the murder of Anne-Lise Aurigny, a brilliant high school student whose mutilated body was found outside Sainte-Élisabeth in a field of heather the previous winter. Le Garrec soon learns that Anne Lise's father was a German officer and her mother was brutalized after the war as a supposed Nazi sympathizer. As le Garrec investigates further, he's troubled by the memories of the atrocities he witnessed in Algeria and of the 19-year-old Algerian girl he was powerless to save. This is a remarkably assured debut by a gifted new writer. Agent: Bill Goodall, A for Authors (U.K.). (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
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