“The House of Blood and Tears”: the new thriller by Jean-Paul Copetti

In Lasserre, a peaceful little corner of Couserans where the most violent noise is that of a laying hen, a former commander of the legendary “36 quai des Orfèvres”, Jean-Paul Copetti, has converted to an equally demanding profession : thriller writer.

With his latest novel, “The House of Blood and Tears”, he invites us into a macabre and procedural ball, where each page oozes the cold smell of crime scenes. “When I write, I relive each scene as if I were there,” he admits, with a smirk. This eighth thriller, inspired by a very real double murder, avoids the traditional clichés of the genre, style: the omnipresent corpse in plastic or the bad whiskey solitary in the back of a smoky office.

He takes us into the depths of the criminal squad, this lair where the souls of the cops are lost in each case. “I wanted to show the reality on the ground,” he explains, as if the reader could forget that this “field” often rhymes with hemoglobin and tedious interrogations, DNA readings and boring reports in anonymous, artificially lit offices.

The former cop is not looking to be spectacular. No Hollywood chases or gratuitous explosions here, just the clinical coldness of the scientific method, where every piece of evidence is a confession, where every mistake can lead to a new corpse in a loose coffin.

“The House of Blood and Tears”, a title borrowed from a journalist who had the relevance of describing the criminal brigade in three well-felt words, unfolds an investigation with surgical precision. But be careful! Copetti sprinkles his lines with black humor, supported by an unadorned style, dry as a shot from a 22 long rifle, fired from point-blank sentences.

Like a well-crafted hunt, we cannot escape the suspense, the cunning skill of this book, conducted like a flawless interrogation. His recurring hero, Commander Clément Chevalier, is not a super-cop. No cape, no gadgets, a humanist look, never disillusioned despite waves in the soul deep enough to hide its cracks, its secrets.

True to his style, Jean-Paul Copetti explores human mysteries and the sordidness of our society. “The House of Blood and Tears” published by Editions Regards, now sits on bookstore shelves. A word of advice: buy it before the stock is bled dry.