Pierre Lemaitre wrote the trilogy starring Camille Verhœoeven: ‘Irène’, ‘Alex’, and ‘Camille’. Considering the recent wrestling I’ve had with my detective series title, which was, as you may recall, ‘The Phenomenological Detective’, Lemaitre gets around it by not actually having a series title! No probs there then.
The books, however, are really rather good. Not always pleasant – there are lots of gruesome murders – but never less than intriguing.
I happened to read ‘Alex’ first, and it is, of course, the middle one. Always a slightly weird place to start. Fascinating though. I can’t think when I read a book which not only resolves the mystery/thriller aspect of the plot, but also ties in all the trailing ends and tucks them under.
Avoiding any spoilers, you realize, towards the end, that there is a reason for each killing and plausible connections between them and with the killer. All I can really say is that the book satisfies in a satisfactory way.
Going back to Irène, the first, book – which refers to (soon to be widowed) Commissaire Verhœven’s wife – we see killings with connections to various thriller/murder novels, including Sjowall and Wahloo’s ‘Beck’ series, a kind of trope often seen in the recent past where (often) serial killings are connected by unusual means (and it can sometimes lead to the question ‘why would the killer bother’). It’s nicely written, though.
‘Camille’ ends the series and is a place where we learn more detail about the Commissaire and finish the story. Unlike Sjowall and Wahloo, there is no scope for six more novels, as they planned the Beck series. Lemaitre, though, has lots more to say in his later books, standalones as well as his France Between the Wars trilogy. Am planning to read much more!
