Have mercy on us all

Perhaps I should have read it in the French but that does seem a little too much when one is considering what is, after all, a fairly run-of-the-mill thriller (though one I had been keen to read, having read an interview with Fred Vargas in the New Scientist: Fred is, if I remember rightly, an archaeologist of some repute who writes under a pseudonym, and Pars vite et reviens tard, a better title actually, won several awards in France).

The strangest thing was that I felt after the first chapter that it fully deserved its accolades. She set the scene so wonderfully well, creating a setting that lived and breathed and characters of good depth. The plot was beautifully set in motion, with plenty of questions and elements of intrigue.

Then she fucked it up.

The policeman, Adamsberg is, I’m sure, supposed to charm you with his absentmindedness, his insouciance, his intuitive thinking, but they came over as cluelessness, carelessness and contrivance, respectively. He gained a great deal of indulgence, it seemed, without ever deserving the least piece. That he survived the book without receiving a hospital-grade kicking was miraculous and thoroughly unsatisfying both. Don’t even start me on the sidekick, so useless that I cannot recall his actually contributing anything to the investigation except an excruciating sidestory about his wife’s leaving him, which you could hardly blame her for. The writing went a little to pieces too, although to be fair it never descended into cliche or incomprehensibility. It lost its engagingness. Some of the twists were dull: some guy is a Breton! Whoopee! Talk about ho fucking hum. He didn’t really rape the child (we didn’t for a moment suspect he did)! Some were smart but poorly introduced: the diamond ring is the most obvious example of a brilliant clue so clumsily presented that you resented the investigator’s finding it.

The plot twisted well towards the end but the denouement was rubbish, because the perpetrator was slammed in without prior notice. There is little more annoying in a whodunnit than the one who dun it to be none of the suspects but a whole new character, unless, as in the Big nowhere, the character is neatly tied in so that you feel yes, it’s clear how he fits the clues that were there and yes, his traces were there and you have had a revelation, just as the investigator has. It’s a fine line to tread between its being awesomely predictable who dun it long before the end (a failing that all books that promise surprises must avoid) and one’s leaving the book with the feeling that the writer didn’t make up their mind until right before the denouement. I felt Vargas simply did not understand the rules of the thriller (despite having observed them so very well in the beginning – although it has to be said that she introduced one set of suspects incredibly poorly, but they were in any case poor suspects, not even half sinister enough). Having said that, the clue that led to realising that there was a new suspect was nicely handled: it had been in play for most of the book and was a clear marker for anyone on the ball (which did not include me but I was in good company because it didn’t include Adamsberg or anyone else involved either) that there would be a further twist at the end.

I tried hard to like it but I was ultimately glad that I had picked it up in a sale for eight bucks. I would have felt she’d picked my pocket if I’d paid the full thirty.

posted by Dr Zen @ 12:14 pm