Christmas is approaching, and we will therefore be able to treat ourselves to books (1): this is the good news. Here are three – and here is also the bad news: we only have, to talk about it, the miserably congruous space of the 3,000 characters (spaces included) of this column (2).
For example to those, many and many, who in these dark times do not necessarily have the means to buy them.
For which we have been asking since the day after the armistice of 1375 that it be expanded a little.
Two detective novels, first. Written by two masters of the genre (obviously American) who we have been following here for many years – because when it comes to crime fiction, it is often the old cooks who still make the best soup.
Michael Connelly is sometimes uneven: we weren't completely convinced by his last book. This one (3), on the other hand, is a excellent vintagewhich will delight doubly (and more if affinities) its faithful, since we find its two most endearing heroes: the former inspector of the Los Angeles Police Department Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch, launched here – as often – in the resolution of a case closed too quickly (and the possible correction of an injustice), and his half-brother Mickey Haller, also known as “the Lincoln lawyer”. Highly recommended reading.
Michael Connelly, Without a shadow of a doubttranslated from the American by Robert Pépin, Calmann-Lévy, 380 pages, 22.90 euros.
After l’ultraviolence of his latest adventures (which took him to Mexico), we feel something like relief to find, under the always alert pen of Craig Johnson, Sheriff Walt Longmire, who remains one of the most endearing heroes of Yankee detective literature, in the almost (almost) peaceful setting of his (imaginary) county of Absaroka, Wyoming, for an investigation of an altogether classic style in the form of a dive, oh so edifying, into the double memory – one white, the other indigenous – of the bloodthirsty General George Armstrong Custer, killed at Little Big Horn by the Indian-American resistance, June 25, 1876 (4).
Craig Johnson, The Last Fighttranslated from the American by Sophie Aslanides, Gallmeister, 416 pages, 24.90 euros.
A real favorite, to finish, in a very different genre: Helm Houndby Justine Niogret, initially published in 2010, and republished – excellent idea – by J’ai lu (5). It is, to put it (very) quickly, “medieval” fantasy, where we follow, in her quest for her name – which she never knew –, a young mercenary with such a strong character. than the iron of his hatchet (and with a vocabulary as flowery as it is joyful).
Justin Niogret Hound of the Helm, I read, 223 pages, 8.20 euros.
Everything is harsh in his world “which goes out” – in his “era of fighting” et “of laughter” et “of fires”. But the author also tells us and shows, in a very beautiful way, a whole deep humanityalso steeped in attention(s) and sensitivity(s) – and this, obviously, awakens some echoes in our time.
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