The long shadow, by Hugues Pagan: a winning return

Three years later The Square of the Indigents (which comes out in paperback), Hugues Pagan, a major figure in the French noir novel, comes back with The Shadow. Chief Inspector Schneider is there. Special feature? It is ” a skinny, irascible, wandering and solitary wolf ». Il « no longer feared anything, not even dying », writes the author. “ He was already dead in the Aurès in full sun and without suffering (…) with a strange feeling of fullness and the satisfaction of the accomplished task, and yet he came back. »

In the unnamed town in France where he operates as head of the Criminal Investigation Unit, this man who reminds us of Alain Delon is confronted with a fire which turns out to be criminal. Very quickly, the investigation focuses on curious pilgrims who are fans of the mysterious, housed in one of the city's beautiful residences and protected by a disturbing bodyguard driver. This deleterious atmosphere continues with the behavior…