In “The Assassins of the Dawn”, the very prolific author from Rouen takes us to Guadeloupe where ritual murders bring back the darkest hours of the island.
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“Jacob has spotted the fisherman! He winds a few meters in front of him, harpoon gun in hand, gives him a little wave with his arm then walks away. […] What does this fisherman hope to spear in the lagoon? A skewer of clown fish? Does he think he will come face to face with a marlin or a grouper in such shallow water? Jacob suddenly feels a presence at his back. He turns around as quickly as he can but, strangely, he already understands. The grouper is him.” The body of the businessman was found a few hours later on the “slave marches” in Petit-Canal; fifty-four stone steps which led to the esplanade where the captives were sold upon their arrival in Guadeloupe. On each of them, plaques recalling the names of African ethnic groups torn from their continent: Congos, Yorubas, Ibos, Ouolofs, Peuls, Bamilékés… Unusual detail, in the elastic of the dead man’s swimsuit, a small bloody cardboard box was inserted with, precisely, the name of one of these unfortunate people who died in 1663 in the Petit-Canal prison.
Ritual crimes
Thus begins a dizzying investigation for Commander Valeric Kancel, a Guadeloupean who recently returned home after a career in mainland France. Because the death of the businessman was “announced” live by an old man from the island, a «quimboiseur»West Indian spell-casting sorcerer, nicknamed the Black Eye because of his visions and macabre predictions. Witchcraft or manipulation and complicity with the murderous harpooner? The police are slipping while this first crime is quickly followed by two others, also committed at dawn, and accompanied by the same macabre scenes linked to the slavery past of the Antilles. The three victims did not know each other and had nothing to do with each other… Could the link and the killer’s motivations be sought elsewhere?
Michel Bussi is a geographer by training, teaching for a long time at the University of Rouen, and he has forgotten nothing about his first profession. In My heart has moved, which we chronicled at the start of the year, we followed the revenge of a young girl, from the age of 7 to the age of 24, in the Norman town described with precision. This time, change of scenery but same talent to bring to life the singing and colorful places of Basse-Terre, Saintes, Petit-Bourg or Baie-Mahault. It is therefore in Guadeloupe that takes us the Assassins of the Dawnthrough the adventures of its three main characters: the pragmatic Commander Kancel, his assistant Marjolaine, a single person looking for love, and Amiel Ouassou, a homosexual police officer confronted with desperate homophobic prejudices. Three personalities, solid and united, who will have their work cut out to hold the helm in the heart of the hurricane triggered by ritual crimes.
With the added bonus – one of Michel Bussi’s trademarks – in the final chapters, a series of twists and turns that will keep the readers of these mysterious Dawn Assassins.
The Assassins of the Dawnby Michel Bussi, Presses de la Cité, 408 pp., 22.90 euros.
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