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Revision as of 11:48, 9 August 2020
, 11:48, 9 August 2020no edit summary
|reviewer=Sue Magee
|genre=Crime
|summary=Part police procedural and part thriller set in northern France in the sixties - it's a page -turning story.
|rating=4
|buy=Yes
There's a noir edge to this series which it's difficult to classify as either crime or thriller. For me there was probably just a bit too much blood around, but I accept that's a matter of personal taste. There's an excellent mystery in there – and I really did have someone else pencilled in as the killer - and there are some neat twists along the way. The thriller element is probably stronger with Rocco – the city cop transferred to the countryside – and an undercover cop keeping the pages turning very quickly. It's perhaps not a top-rank thriller or whodunit but the combination still makes for a ''very'' readable book.
I was most taken by the unmistakeable unmistakable atmosphere of this part of north-east France – not that far from Paris as the crow flies but a world away in terms of attitudes. You can just about reach out and touch the mists and the chill will work its way into your bones. I'm not entirely convinced by Rocco as the city cop come to the countryside as he seems to be at home in Poissons. That's a minor quibble , particularly when set against the depiction of the Algerian gang culture and the problems which this can create in local communities with the influx of criminals from abroad and the burden which falls on the police. The utter disregard for human life exhibited by a couple of the Algerian gangsters was completely chilling.
I enjoyed the book, which worked well as a standalone for someone who hadn't read the [[Death on the Marais by Adrian Magson|first in the series]] and I'll be more than happy to look out for more from Lucas Rocco. I'd like to thank the publisher for sending a copy to the Bookbag.
For more crime from France , we can recommend the work of [[:Category:David Barrie|David Barrie]] whose police procedurals are set in a more modern Paris. You might also like to take a look at [[Black Diamond: A Bruno Courreges Investigation by Martin Walker]]. From the same period, we can recommend [[Achaladair: There Is More Than Gold, in Them Thar Hills by William S Young]].
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