This book by Jean-Christophe Grang頨as been published in
English as Blood-Red Rivers (trans. Ian Monk), The Blood-Red
Rivers, and The Crimson Rivers, as far as I can tell. Whether
they're all the same translation, I don't know. A movie was
made starring Jean Reno, Vincent Cassel and Nadia Fares,
directed by Mathieu Kassovitz.
Two unusual police officers are working on separate cases,
which of course become one near the end of the book.
Pierre Ni魡ns is a brilliant middle-aged Parisian detective
prone to extreme violence. He's physically fit and has a
brush cut. After he beats a soccer hooligan, he's sent to a
small university town in central France to consult on a
murder case and keep him out of the public eye for a while. A
dead man is suspended on a cliff above a river. His eyes have
been replaced by water. Other murders ensue. Ni魡ns insists
that they are not the work of an American-style serial
killer; no, they are a series of killings by someone with a
specific motive.
Meanwhile Karim Abdouf is investigating the descecration of a
grave in a tiny village an hour or so away. He's an orphan, a
French-born Arab, who became a police officer after putting
himself through law school by stealing cars. He's tall, thin
and has dreadlocks. He's somewhat resistant to authority and
has been exiled to the countryside, where he has had no
opportunity to use his highly developed detective
skills--until now.
The motive for the killings (and Abdouf's case) is extremely
weird. At times I feared the plot was veering over into
science fiction territory. It didn't, really, but it was
close. It all has to do with some people who had noticed that
the inbreeding among university faculty had resulted in
extremely intelligent, yet physically defective offspring
over the course of several generations, while the peasant
folk nearby were extremely fit, yet not necessarily
academically inclined. What if the two groups could be
crosspollinated?
I won't tell you any more. The killings and mutilations are
gruesome, the "stagings" extremely complicated and
farfetched, and the story behind the motive likewise
farfetched. In other words, I didn't really like it. Too bad,
because I would have liked to see more of Abdouf at
work.
Karin
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 21 Jun 2006 EDT