Benjamin Dierstein ‘Bleus, blancs, rouges

Because the figures from the Ministry of the Interior prove it, Mr. Bonnet – crime has been increasing by an average of fifteen percent every year since the Monarch came to power. Not only are the Bolsheviks back, but thugs of all kinds continue to expand their activities. The king of gambling, Marcel Francisci, the drug kingpin Tany Zampa, and the king of prostitutes Gilbert Zemour continue to defy the authorities. ***

The 800 pages were a minimum necessary to paint the picture of this era, the end of the seventies in France, the last years of an old order. Dierstein knits together some of the contradictory forces present at the time during the presidency of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the Monarch to those around him, France’s links to and interference in its ex-colonies and the scandals, in particular Bokasa’s diamonds. But also the increased crime as illustrated above, favoured by the war between the different police departments and structures, including the unofficial police, the SAC, Civic Action Service, a political organisation created in 1960 to support General de Gaulle, which became a parallel police force operating until 1982.

– The SAC. They come to demonstrations with fake ambulances, kidnap kids and take them to cellars for interrogation. They do everything we’re not allowed to do.***

Two other major events at the time are the escape and manhunt for France’s number one bank robber, Jacques Mesrine and the emergence from the leftist groups proliferating in France in the aftermath of may 68 and the de-industrialisation of the 70’s, of Action Directe.

These are a large number of people and events, skilfully brought together by the use of several characters used to illustrate the internal police wars (two young police officers, Marco Paolini and Jacquie Lienard), both idealistic at the outset. An ex-policeman, Jean-Louis Gourvennec, who is used to infiltrate the groups coalescing towards Action Directe in competition with an actual true life infiltrator doing exactly that. He also brings in a shady ex-mercenary, Vauthier with links to Bokassa and to Giscard.

A dry, cold voice took over. René Journiac was a former member of the Resistance who had worked for de Gaulle and saved Vauthier in the 1960s—along with Colonel Cadé, he had been among those who had reached out to the former OAS members to reintegrate them into the fold of French intelligence. Journiac had been Jacques Foccart’s right-hand man during the Pompidou years and had taken advantage of the 1974 elections to place Vauthier in charge of the President’s security detail during the campaign. Since then, he had been the new “Mr. Africa” at the Élysée Palace—the President’s most influential advisor on all African matters.

Dierstein walks the fine line between well researched true crime and crime fiction here to give a remarkable book that kept me interested from start to finish

Do I need to read the other books in competition? Of course I do.

First Published in French as Bleus, blancs, rouges in 2025 by Éditions Flammarion,

*** Microsoft translation, corrected where necessary

The quotes as read in French before translation

Car les chiffres de Beauvau le prouvent, monsieur Bonnet – la délinquance connaît une progression moyenne de quinze pour cent chaque année depuis que le Monarque est au pouvoir. Non seulement les bolchos sont de retour, mais les voyous de toutes sortes continuent à étendre leurs activités. L’empereur des jeux Marcel Francisci, le prince de la chnouf Tany Zampa et le roi des filles galantes Gilbert Zemour continuent de narguer les autorités.

Le SAC. Ils viennent dans les manifs avec des fausses ambulances, enlèvent les mômes et les amènent dans des caves pour les interroger. Ils font tout ce qu’on n’a pas le droit de faire.

Une voix sèche et froide prit le relais. René Journiac était un ancien résistant qui avait travaillé pour de Gaulle et sauvé la mise à Vauthier dans les années soixante – avec le colonel Cadé, il avait fait partie de ceux qui avaient tendu la main aux ex-OAS pour les réintégrer dans le giron du renseignement français. Journiac avait été le bras droit de Jacques Foccart pendant les années Pompidou, et avait profité des élections de 1974 pour placer Vauthier à la tête du service d’ordre du Monarque pendant la campagne. Depuis, il était le nouveau monsieur Afrique de l’Élysée – le conseiller le plus influent du Président sur toutes les questions africaines.

Quais Du Polar 2026

Another year comes over the horizon and with it the short list for the “Prix des Lecteurs”, Quai du Polar: easy to remember! So let’s begin reading for 2026.

  • Petite-Ville, Mélika Abdelmoumen – Mémoire d’Encrier
  • On ne mange pas les cannibales, Stéphanie Artarit – Belfond
  • Le Livre des Prodiges, d’Olivier Ciechelski – Le Rouergue
  • Les Braises de l’incendie, d’Éric Couty – Liana Levi
  • Bleus, blancs, rouges, Benjamin Dierstein – Flammarion
  • 34 m², Louise Mey – Le Masque

The short list as always contains 6 books, Can I manage all six in two months,and continue reading all of the other interesting books out there, well here’s trying!

I’ve decided to begin with the Benjamin Dierstein, already the winner of “Prix Polar en Séries 2025”, a guaranteed good read but 800 pages, that should slow down the reading not to forget that I’ve two other books underway, “La Maison Vide” from Mauvgner 752 pages and Tartt’s “Secret History at a miniscule 640 pages.

If you decide to read these books before the event to out guess the jury, let me know! and I’ll include your prognostic.

Florence Seyvos ‘Un perdant magnifique’

The living-room-dining-room resembled a whirlwind, like a giant game of musical chairs, Jacques directed the manoeuvres, ran from one end to the other, lent a hand here and then there, urged Irene to move a carpet, to take our old chairs down to the cellar, to unplug the lamps and put them elsewhere…..
In the kitchen, my mother was crying….
He knows the amount of our overdraft, I reminded him yesterday” she whispered, looking straight ahead…..
We will have to return this furniture***

And here we are with the last book read for the Roman de Rochefort this year, Anna tells the story of her adolescence, of the 1980’s in Le Havre and of her improbable step father who arrives one Christmas, in between situations in Abidjan, otherwise said without income and goes on a wild spending spree to refurnish the house at credit with clearly no way of paying for it as explained in the opening quote.

Anna’s mother, Maud had previously moved to Abidjan with her young children to be with Jacques, but life with Jacques, a charmer and a dreamer was far from easy as Anna reminisces:

Sometimes I think that our mother chose to marry Jacques because she liked difficulty, because it was a choice equal to her own combativeness, her secret need to fight. She admired him as she admired Napoleon. She liked that Jacques’ life felt like a destiny and that this marriage made her a heroine.***

But the idea of constant fighting to survive, going from one potential disaster to the next that Jacques brought upon them was exhausting as Anna expresses:

But if so far many disasters had been avoided, there had been no dramatic turn of events, only the exhausting feeling of swimming with one’s head at the water’s edge, at the mercy of a series of waves stronger than the previous ones.***

We all live with some unknowns about our futures, sometimes brought on by our own choices, this story extrapolates this to a constant state where every choice is romantic but doomed, the story of an encourageable loser seen by those around him.

First published in French by Edition de l’Olivier in 2025 as “Un perdant magnifique”

*** Microsoft Word Translate with my improvements

The quotes as read in French before translation

Le salon-salle à manger ressemblait à un tourbillon, à un jeu de chaise musicales géant, Jacques dirigeait les manœuvres, courait d’une extrémité à l’autre, prêtait mainforte à gauche, à droite, pressait Irène de déplacer un tapis, de descendre nos anciennes chaises à la cave, de débrancher les lampes pour les poser ailleurs…..
A la cuisine, ma mère pleurait….
Il connait le montant de notre découvert, je le lui ai rappelé hier, a-t-elle murmuré en regardant droit devant elle…..
Il va falloir rendre ces meubles

Parfois je pense que notre mère avait choisi d’épouser Jacques parce qu’elle aimait la difficulté, parce que c’était un choix à la mesure de sa propre combativité, de son besoin secret d’en découdre. Elle l’admirait comme elle admirait Napoléon. Elle aimait que la vie de Jacques ressemble à un destin et que ce mariage fasse d’elle une héroïne

Mais si jusqu’ici bien des catastrophes avaient été évitées, il n’y avait pas eu de coup de théâtre, seulement le sentiment épuisant de nager la tête au ras de l’eau, à la merci de d’une série de vagues plus forts que les précédentes.


Alice McDermott “Absolution”

I’d noticed this before, among girls of her tribe: they knew an easy mark, a girl of lesser means who would be reflexively—genetically—disposed to do for her whatever she asked.

The book begins in 1963 in Saigon, Patricia, an Irish American army wife arrives with her husband Peter, this is early in the conflict before the wider public knows what is happening. To the wives, it was an exotic place, they lived in gated communities. At her first garden party she meets Charlene, a mother of three, full of energy and her youngest Rainey, she gives her reflexions upon this meeting in the opening quote.

60 years later Rainey, who had seen copies of many of her mothers friends letters, after her father’s death, the last generation to leave written letters she supposed, describing their efforts at inconsequential good, contacts Patricia because she was always attentive to her.

I carried a box of these letters from Long Island to Baltimore after my father died. I had some vague idea then that I’d try to find these old friends of my mother, or their children, perhaps even return their letters to them. Never got around to it. Busyness, and demon time. As we began our first sorting that spring, I decided it was senseless to hold on to these letters any longer, mundane as they were, the record of a disappearing generation’s efforts at inconsequential good.

Patricia then tells her of this period, of the initial contact with Charlene and getting one of the Vietnamese house ladies, Lily, to make custom clothes for children’s Barbie dolls which Charlene’s sister in the US sold making money to fund charitable works in Saigon.

Anyway, Charlene picked up twenty new orders in the hour after church. Enough to keep Lily busy for another week. And you, Rainey, as I recall, were a charming little saleswoman. Every bit your mother’s daughter.

The book handles the steady awakening of the wives, through the charity work, to the situation, back in the time when it was still accepted practice for the men not to tell their wives about their work or the situation outside of their cocoon.

The book also handles the ease of adoption and the little need for paperwork as Charlene takes Patricia, who can’t have the child she so wants on a visit in a poorer section of Saigon without telling her where they were going and then has a young child placed in her arms:

For the first time I wondered how long it had taken Charlene to arrange this; how long ago had she set her eyes on this little girl, directed the women to fatten her up for me. Dress her up. I wondered if the pink party dress itself had perhaps been procured by Charlene’s clever sister. Or if Charlene and our doctor friend had paid the mother a good price.

The children’s sisters and brothers follow her home and ask for their sister back, which she agrees to.

A subtle nuanced story which grows on you, rereading I appreciated this work more again.

The book was read for the Roman de Rochefort prize, a contender in my mind.

First published in English by Bloomsbury Publishing in 2023 as “Absolution”

Translated into French by Cécile Arnaud and published by Table Rond as « Absolution » in 2024

*** Microsoft Word Translate with my improvements

The quotes as read in French before translation

J’avais déjà remarqué ça chez les filles de sa tribu: elles repéraient une cible facile, une fille moins riche qui serait instinctivement _ génétiquement _ disposée à faire tout ce qu’elles leur demandaient.l’entraînant vers le buffet pour la resservir en champagne.

J’ai emporté un carton de ces lettres de long Island à Baltimore après la mort de mon père, avec la vague idée d’essayer un jour de retrouver ces vieilles amies de ma mère, ou leurs enfants, voire de leur retourner leurs courriers. Je ne l’ai jamais fait. Trop occupé, manque de temps. Lorsque nous avons commencé notre premier tri ce printemps, j’ai décidé qu’il était inutile de conserver plus longtemps ces missives somme toute banales, témoignages des bonnes œuvres dérisoires d’une génération presque disparue.

Quoi qu’il en soit, Charlene a décroché vingt nouvelles commandes dans l’heure ayant suivi l’office. De quoi occuper Lily une semaine supplémentaire. Quant à toi, Rainey, d’après mes souvenirs, tu étais une adorable petite vendeuse. La digne fille de ta mère.

Pour la première fois, je me suis demandé combien de temps Charlene avait mis à organiser tout ça; quand elle avait posé les yeux sur cette petite fille et ordonné aux femmes de l’engraisser à mon intention. De l’habiller joliment. Je me suis demandé si la robe de fête rose n’avait pas été fourni par l’intelligente sœur de Charlene.

Laurent Groff “Les terres indomptées”

She had once believed that in the deepest reaches of everything was a nothing where men had planted god; but now she knew that deeper within that nothing was something else, something made of light and heat. It was this light and heat that endured, that was everlasting. At the center was not nothing, no. Out of the light and the heat all goodness poured.

A young girl, in service to a minister, who had made the dangerous crossing to the new world to find herself in an isolated fort, surrounded by the fierce “men of this country” full of disease and with little or no food escapes into the wilds wearing “the good boots stolen off the son of a gentleman…who had died of smallpox the night before” and “These leather gloves and thick cloak the girl had stolen off her own mistress”. And so the book begins, leaving a fort of no hope with a vague idea of finding the frenchmen:

When she had a breath to consider her bearings, she tried to summon, again, the drawing of the bay she had seen over the shoulder of the governor, with the rivers radiating out of it like flares. Thinking she was moving swiftly toward the place far to the north where she believed the frenchmen might be, she tried to keep to what was the solid land on the left.

The girl is a survivor, learning to live, just, in these mostly empty wilds, during her wanderings she is able to avoid the men of this country, lucky for them as we later learn, as well as a wild man who had been a spanish jesuit priest many years previous, Groff imagines what a man of his upbringing and time might have thought in discovering a woman in the wilds:

This was a thing, a thing; he had lost the name of such things as these, that bleed out of the place of shames. Things of breasts, of holes. Bad things, Eve things, harlot things, mother things, wife things, baby-making things. She things. These not-men things. O it would not return, the name of this kind of human. These things that had been flushed with evil since the wife of Adam was bitten by the snake that made her eat the fruit and thus condemn all mankind to inherent sin. For surely, if there were no christians nearby and of course there were not, this she-thing could not be really here.

The unforgiving world that the girl finds herself wandering in slowly shapes her thoughts and beliefs, as she has a close encounter with bears, “She thought it wonderful that if the bear ate her, some part of her would enter the bear’s body, would flow through her milk into the bodies of the babes, and the babes would grow to adult bears and would have their own babes, and some small part of who she had been would live somewhere within the blood and meat and fat of all of them.” and her changing thoughts about God, from a man made idea to something else when faced with utter loneliness and the wonderment of nature, maybe a little like primitive peoples, as illustrated in the opening quote.

And finally when the original sin, the stealing of the boots from the man with with smallpox proves her undoing, Groff takes the thought process to its natural conclusion living alone or nearly alone in the wilds as our very own ancestors must have done:

Then everything that made the girl herself through the shedding of time did come out of her, and this essential self of her passed into the air, and the wind that blew over her prone body lifted it into the larger, higher world.

The book was read for the Roman de Rochefort prize, an ambitious book with no dialogue in the wilds, except that within the girls head, I believe the book is too difficult to be a contender.

First published in English as “The Vaster Wilds” by Riverhead Books in 2023

Translated into french by Carine Chichereau and published by Editions de l’Olivier as “Les terres indomptées” in 2025.

The quotes as read in French before translation

Naguère elle avait cru qu’au fond de toute chose il y avait un rien où l’homme avaient semé dieu; à présent elle savait que plus profond encore dans ce rien, il y avait autre chose faite de lumière et de chaleur. Et cette lumière et cette chaleur qui perduraient existaient à jamais. Au centre, il n’y avait pas rien, non. De cette lumière et cette chaleur se déversait toute bonté.

Quand elle pût prendre le temps de méditer sa position, elle tenta de se rappeler le dessin de la baie aperçu par-dessus l’épaule du gouverneur, avec des fleuves qui irradiaient comme des flammes. Pensant qu’elle progressait régulièrement vers cet endroit, au nord, où elle s’imaginait pouvoir retrouver les français, elle essayait de maintenir la terre ferme à gauche.

C’était une chose, une chose; il avait oublié le nom de telles choses, qui saignait des parties honteuses. Ces choses à seins, ces choses à trous. Ces mauvaises choses, ces choses d’Ève, choses catins et choses mères, choses épouses, produisant des enfants. Elles-choses. Choses non-hommes. Ô, ne lui revenait point le nom de ces humains. Ces choses empreintes de mal depuis ce jour fatal où fut mordue l’épouse d’Adam par le serpent, qui lui fit goûter à ce fruit et condamna ainsi toute l’humanité par le péché originel. Car en effet, s’il n’y avait point de chrétiens dans les parages, et cela était impossible, alors cette elle-chose ne pouvait être là.

Elle trouvait merveilleux que, si l’ourse la mangeait, une partie d’elle entrerait dans son corps, qui passerait dans son lait puis dans le corps de ses petits, les petits grandiraient et deviendraient adultes, auraient à leur tour des bébés, et une infime partie de ce qu’elle avait été vivrait quelque part dans leur sang et leur chair et leur graisse

Puis tout ce qui constituait la jeune fille elle-même au travers de la mue du tempsquitta son crps, et l’essence de son être filtra dans l’air, et la brise qui caressait son corps, étendu sur le ventre, l’emporta dans les vastes espaces de l’empyrée.

Adele Yonn “Mon vrai nom est Elizabeth”

It was then that the family particularly insisted on neurosurgery. Dr. Fouquet, who was following the patient, asked Dr. Hécaen for a consultation on the subject. Dr. Hécaen is particularly reticent. After describing the disorders, he adds: “It seems difficult to me to admit the need for a surgical operation of the lobotomy type in a lucid patient, certainly refusing the operation.”***

This Intense book was a discovery for me, so recent to my own life yet so strange. The Elizabeth of the title, known to everyone as Betsy is Adèle, the authors great grandmother, nobody in the family talked of her and, of this mystery is born this book, an investigation into the mid twentieth century’s psychiatric mistreatment of women, of the preponderant role of the husband’s views and rights. As is shown in the opening quote, under her husband’s insistance Betsy underwent a lobotomy.

But who are these people that would do this to a woman, what is a lobotomy, who championed it and how and why? Where was it carried out and why in particular did Adèle want to dig into this? Adèle Yonn in this necessary work through a thorough investigation delivers us an investigation into her family where no one wants to discuss the subject and her great Grandfather’s relationship to his wife, Betsy through letters he had sent:

Saturday 2 march 1940, 11h30

Dear Betsy

I have a very high and chaste idea of woman, and nothing disgusts me more than those who consider women as an instrument of pleasure. I will go even further and say that I still have a hard time conceiving our marriage from the physical point of view. If you only knew, Betsy darling, how I respect you. You are surely the best supporter of my purity. My God, I pray that Betsy and I will always be pure.***

She shows us a self examination where she had worried about havng Betsy’s folly being handed down to her genetically, she takes us on a road trip where she visits different parts of her family but also the clinic where Betsy was interned for ten years during which time her husband, André remarried and had children without telling her. Adèle carries out an in depth investigation into what is a lobotomy, the way it was championed, first in the US by charlatans carrying out instant lobotomies at county fairs, and their short but controversial use in France.

The lobotomy wasn’t the first attempt at psychiatric mistreatment, after giving birth to four children in quick succession Betsy was finding her life difficult and in 1949 underwent a first dangerous treatment:

A course of treatment “Sakel” in Ville-Évrard. Thirty hypoglycemic comas of forty-five minutes each. Insulin injections that propel the body into rest….. When Elizabeth wakes up in the dormitory, her neighbor is no longer there. Overdose.***

This book quite literally takes your breath away, a worthy winner of the numerous literary prizes it is reaping, but will it win the most important of them all, the prix du roman de Rochefort? nothing is less certain.

First published in French by Éditions du sous-sol in 2025 as “Mon vrai nom est Elizabeth”

*** Microsoft Word Translate with my improvements

The quotes as read in French before translation

C’est alors que la famille insiste tout particulièrement pour une intervention neurochirurgicale. Le Dr. Fouquet, qui suit la malade, demande au Dr Hécaen une consultation à ce sujet. Le Dr Hécaen se montre particulièrement réticent. Après avoir décrit les troubles, il ajoute : « Il me paraît difficile d’admettre la nécessité d’une opération chirurgicale du type lobotomie chez une malade lucide, refusant certainement l’intervention. »

Je me fais de la femme une idée très haute, très chaste, et rien ne me dégoûte plus que ceux qui considèrent la femme comme un instrument de plaisir . J’irai même plus loin et je dirai que je conçois encore mal notre mariage au point de vue physique. Si vous saviez, Betsy chérie, comme je vous respecte. Vous êtes sûrement le meilleur soutien de ma pureté. Mon Dieu, je Vous prie pour que Betsy et moi soyons toujours purs.

1949 Cure de Sakel à Ville-Évrard. Trente comas hypoglycémiques de quarante-cinq minutes chacun. Les piqûres d’insuline qui propulse le corps dans le repos…..Quand Elizabeth se réveille dans le dortoir, sa voisine n’est plus là. Surdosage.

Samedi 2 mars 1940, 11h30

Ma chère Betsy,

Je me fais de la femme une idée très haute, très chaste, et rien ne me dégoûte plus que ceux qui considèrent la femme comme un instrument de plaisir . J’irai même plus loin et je dirai que je conçois encore mal notre mariage au point de vue physique. Si vous saviez, Betsy chérie, comme je vous respecte. Vous êtes sûrement le meilleur soutien de ma pureté. Mon Dieu, je Vous prie pour que Betsy et moi soyons toujours purs.

Peter Heller “The Orchard”

What I may have understood is that life with Haley was kind of heavy. It felt like a fight for survival every day, because I guess that’s what it really was. Even the lighter moments—making blueberry pie and getting it smeared all over our faces, catching a brook trout who didn’t want to be caught as badly as I wanted to catch it, jumping off Jumping Rock into the pond, playing cribbage by the light of the Aladdin lantern—all those moments took place in the context of survival. They were relief. Respite. Could a seven-year-old be aware of all that? She could certainly feel it.

What a book! The story of Haley, a successful American translator of 8th century Chinese poet Li Xue, and her choice of rewilding, to take her seven year old daughter and herself to live in a run down apple orchard in the Vermont foothills. This was a really difficult and engaged choice as told by her daughter Frith in the opening paragraph two decades later.

This is a tale of friendship with Rosie, who just turned up at their cabin one day to welcome them, and the mother-daughter love. The book begins more than two decades after the events as Frith finally builds up the strength to read the file her mother left her;

That I could have forgotten the file, or ignored it, or delayed reading it for two decades. That I did not open the chest in all that time, that I was not willing.

Frith discovers the poems that her mother had translated which she had purposely left in an order that would mirror their experiences, poems such as The Orchard:

Tonight the scent of apple blossoms
and the murmur of the brook
slip through the open window
the way we once heard ten strings.
Our daughter sleeps despite the racket in my heart.

Why did Hayley make this precarious choice, which incidentally left her without an adequate health insurance ? We learn of her love for Frith’s father but of their tragedy, of his inability to live in peace outside of his Cajun roots. Hayley attends a translator’s conference and is ambushed in a live radio interview about her work, letting us feel some of the drift of academia towards identity politics and the misunderstanding of her life’s work:

“She asked about Li Xue, her life, her exile. Then she said, ‘So why, in the age of
feminism, do we need ancient Chinese poems which recapitulate the male
gaze?”

I cried, this is a moving book, a clear contender for the Roman de Rochefort prize, which Heller brings full circle at the end of the book, as Frith, whilst in her mother’s cabin listens:

I can hear the brook. I know by the rush it is running high.

First published in English by Scribd in 2019 as “The Orchard”

Translated into French by Céline Leroy and published as “La Pommeraie” in 2025 by Actes Sud.

The quotes as read in French

Peut-être ai-je compris que la vie avec Hayley était un peu pesante. Chaque jour, nous avions l’impression de mener un combat pour notre survie, sûrement parce que c’était la réalité. Même dans les moments plus légers- préparer une tarte aux myrtilles et se barbouiller le visage de fruits, attraper une truite mouchetée qui résistait autant que je me démenais, sauter dans l’étang depuis le Caillou Tremplin, jouer aux cartes à la lumière de la lampe d’Aladin -tout ceci se déroulait dans un contexte de survie. Il s’agissait d’accalmies. De répit. Une petite fille de sept ans pouvait elle en avoir conscience? Elle l’éprouvait, en tout cas.

Ce soir le parfum des fleurs de pommier 
Et le murmure du ruisseau 
Se faufilent par la fenêtre ouverte comme autrefois nous parvenait le son de dix cordes.
Notre fille dort malgré le vacarme au fond de mon cœur.

Que j’aie pu oublier le dossier , aie pu ignorer, ou en retarder la lecture pendant deux décennies. Que je n’en aie pas eu envie.

Elle m’a posé des questions sur Li Xue, sa vie, son exil. Et puis elle a dit : « À l’heure du féminisme, pourquoi devrait on lire d’anciens poèmes chinois qui mettent en avant le regard masculin ? »

J’entends le ruisseau. Au bruit qu’il fait, je sais que le débit est haut.

Alaa El Aswany ‘Au soir d’Alexandrie’

Attention everyone! she had cried out suddenly. The people present looked at her and she went on cheerfully: “This is a warning to all members of the Caucus. Men with beautiful eyes must hide them behind dark glasses, or risk being arrested by the military police. “Carlo is the only one concerned,” Abbas el-Qosi said with a big laugh. We have nothing to fear. “It’s the officers of the military police, and they alone, who decide the beauty of your eyes,” replied Chantal. “My dear Chantal,” Tony interjected, laughing, “you’re drunk again and you’re talking nonsense. “Tony, I’m not talking nonsense. It is you who doesn’t know what is going on in Alexandria.***

The Caucus as they call themselves is a disparate group of friends that meet after the restaurants and bars close in Alexandria, discussing everything and nothing about themselves and life but not about politics, in the late fifties after Nasser has taken over the country. Alexandria is a cosmopolitain city at this point, making its money from trade. The members of the caucus represent everything that will perish and change under Nasser. As the book begins, the changes are closing in on the Caucus members as Chantal in the above quote tries first, lightly and then more pressingly to tell them.

This book is told through the stories of these and of the other members of this microcosm, Asma a teacher, Mazen a unionist, Aschraf a rich Copt and his servant Akram as well as Nourhane a television presenter. We learn of the extreme violence of the army against their own people, including murders, torture and running over protestors at speed in narrow streets with their tanks, of the enforced and humiliating virginity tests carried out on the female protestors with soldiers watching on, these told through individual testimonies, and the question of the link between the different submissions is raised:

Religion makes you accept oppression and expect justice in the next life. Religion trains you to obey. You obey God, then you obey the men of religion, then you obey your husband, and so it is easy for you to obey the dictator afterwards. Marriage, like religion, leads to submission.***

We are told of how State security, organises for rich private Egyptians within the media to set up a successful smear campaign against the young protestors persuading the average Egyptian that their is a plot against order and the army, financed from abroad, as in this excerpt concerning Nourhane:

Every evening the Egyptians watch Nourhane. She invites university professors, intellectuals, specialists in strategic affairs. All confirm with proof that the Egyptian revolution had only ever been a conspiracy financed and planned by the American secret services and their counterparts in Mossad. Each time, you could read the emotion on Nourhane’s beautiful face as she ended her program calling the almighty in a humble voice as the camera gives a closeup of her face:
—Oh God, make Egypt safe and free her from traitors and those that wish her ill.***

This is a deeply disturbing book mixing manipulation with religion and the underlying influence of Wahabism, the power of the rich arab states, to explain how Egypt’s present day has been shaped. I suspect this book is not going to be available in Egypt in the forseeable future.

First Published in Arabic as “Al-ashjâr tamshi fi-l-Iskandariyya” in 2024 by Hachette Antoine
Translated into french by Gilles Gauthier and published by Actes Sud in 2024


*** Microsoft Word Translate with my improvements

The quotes as read in French before translation

Attention tout le monde! s’était-elle écriée tout à coup. Les personnes présentes l’avaient alors regardée et elle avait poursuivi gaiement : — C’est un avertissement que j’adresse à tous les membres du Caucus. Les hommes qui ont de beaux yeux doivent les cacher derrière des lunettes noires, sous peine d’être arrêtés par la police militaire. — Carlo est le seul concerné, dit Abbas el-Qosi dans un grand éclat de rire. Nous, nous n’avons rien à craindre. — Ce sont les officiers de la police militaire, et eux seuls, qui décident de la beauté de vos yeux, répliqua Chantal. — Ma chère Chantal, intervint Tony en riant, tu es à nouveau ivre et tu dis des sottises. — Tony, je ne dis pas de sottises. C’est toi qui ne sais pas ce qui se passe à Alexandrie.

La religion vous fait accepter l’oppression et attendre la justice dans l’autre vie. La religion vous entraîne à obéir. Vous obéissez à Dieu puis vous obéissez aux hommes de religion, ensuite vous obéissez à votre mari et il est donc facile qu’ensuite vous obéissiez au dictateur. Le mariage, comme la religion, conduit à la soumission.

Tous les soirs, les Égyptiens regardent Nourhane. Elle invite des professeurs d’université, des intellectuels, des spécialistes des affaires stratégiques. Tous confirment par des preuves que la révolution égyptienne n’a jamais été qu’une conspiration financée et planifiée par les services secrets américains et leurs homologues du Mossad. À chaque fois, on pouvait lire l’émotion sur le beau visage de Nourhane alors qu’elle terminait son émission en appelant le Tout-Puissant d’une voix humble alors que la caméra montrait en gros plan son visage : « Oh Dieu, sécurise l’Égypte et libère-la des traîtres et de ceux qui lui veulent du mal.

Rebecca Lighieri “Le Club des enfants perdus”

Too many times I have witnessed my daughter’s attempts to overcome her embarrassment and shyness. Too many times, I’ve seen people give her five minutes of their attention, before giving up, discouraged by her lack of repartee and obvious embarrassment. I expect Swan to do the same. However, he immediately seems to be under the spell, leading her to the buffet to serve her more champagne.***

This is basically a book of two halves, the first long section is told through the eyes of Armand, a real theatre celebrity, with its world turning around him, an overwhelming personality, who loves and feels close to his daughter Miranda. Armand is married to a famous German actress, Birke, who is fighting to survive as a fifties something actress and has always had a distant relationship with her daughter.

The second half of the book is told by Miranda, and we understand that far from the shy, lost poor thing we are lead to believe is Miranda in the first part, she is a determined woman in full control of her world, as is illustrated by the same scene, her meeting with the young actor Swann, first told in the opening quote by Armand and then through Miranda’s eyes:

One look at Swan was enough for me to know all about him. From the first night, he was completely transparent and strangely familiar to me. I let him come to me, I let him believe that he had chosen me above all others, but it was I who had made my choice.***

Miranda at a Young age seemed to live in a world of her own, that as Armand realised flowed over past her young age as described below:

She had finally broken her silence to ask if Thumbelina was entitled to a cake.
-The Thumbelina of the tale?
-No, it’s another, but she looks like her: she’s small, small!
Her face finally lit up as she spoke to us, describing in great detail a creature straight out of Andersen’s tales. I was happy and secretly proud that Delphine and Aurélien discovered the Miranda that only I knew: an animated, smiling and whimsical Miranda…..perhaps I should have asked questioned myself instead of being overwhelmed by Miranda’s overflowing imagination. Because she was nine years old, not three or four. She was nine years old, and completely ignoring the context, she was now in great discussion with a fairy tale character.***

But these same moments seen by Miranda were seen as a link between her and the spirit world, of her extra-lucidity:

My life has always been punctuated by apparitions, some disturbing, others not at all. But none of my imaginary friends had that consistency. Maybe he was trying to give me a warning. Or he would make fun of me, in his perverse way. There is malice in the other world. A kind of twisted mischief.***

And so we get to the club, Kurt, Amy, Janis Jimi, all dead at 27, all too empathetic for the world around them of which Miranda feels part.

The book was read for the Roman de Rochefort prize, literally a book of two parts, a contender but not my favourite.

First published in French by P.O.L in 2025 as “Le Club des enfants perdues”

*** Microsoft Word Translate with my improvements

The quotes as read in French before translation

Trop de fois j’ai assisté aux tentatives de ma fille pour passer outre sa gêne et sa timidité. Trop de fois, j’ai vu les gens lui accorder cinq minutes d’attention, avant de renoncer, découragés par son absence de repartie et son embarras évident. Je m’attends à ce que Swan fasse de même. Or, il paraît d’emblée sous le charme, l’entraînant vers le buffet pour la resservir en champagne.

Un seul regard jeté à Swann m’a suffi pour tout savoir de lui. Dès le premier soir, il m’a été complètement transparent et étrangement familier. Je l’ai laissé venir à moi, je l’ai laissé croire qu’il m’avait élue entre toutes, mais c’est moi qui avait fait mon choix.

Elle avait fini par sortir de son mutisme pour demander si Poucette avait droit à un gâteau.
-La Poucette du conte?
-Non c’est une autre, mais elle lui ressemble: elle est petite, petite!
Son visage s’éclairait enfin tandis qu’elle nous parlait, décrivant avec force détails une créature tout droit sortie des contes d’Andersen. J’étais heureux et secrètement fier que Delphine et Aurélien découvrent la Miranda que j’étais seul à connaître: une Miranda animée, souriante et pleine de fantaisie…..j’aurais peut-être dû me poser des questions au lieu de me rengorger devant l’imagination débordante de Miranda. Car elle avait neuf ans, pas trois ou quatre. Elle avait neuf ans, et faisant complètement abstraction du contexte, elle était désormais en grande discussion avec un personnage de contes de fées.

Ma vie a toujours été rythmée par des apparitions, certaines inquiétantes, d’autres pas du tout. Mais aucun de mes amis imaginaires n’a eu cette constance. Celui-là cherchait peut-être à me donner un avertissement. Ou alors il se foutait de ma gueule, à sa façon perverse. Il y a de la malice, dans l’autre monde. Une sorte d’espièglerie tordue.

Cécile Mury ‘Paris-Hollywood’

“By the way—” It almost always ends badly for you, on screen. In Z-End, in Nevilles’s Cross or Ride of Darkness, and even in White Trash…
“Is that a question?”
“Yes.” Why do you die all the time?
“Why, that’s a good one.” This is a first. What for? I have no idea. Maybe it excites me because it’s less definitive…
—You do this job “because it’s less definitive?”
He looked at me with a funny look. Floating, as if on the surface of a pond.
Then a blonde poked her head between the shrubs and King Kong’s monumental biceps:
“Ben, the car is ready…»
He didn’t even turn his head.
“Later. We’re not done.»
After a moment of silent insistence, she had disappeared.
“Excuse me. I’m expected elsewhere.»
“At this time?”
“Yes, at this time.” Do you understand now why “I die all the time”? It gives me the opportunity to lie down.»***

Marianne Corvo, a film journalist is asked to interview a major world star of the screen, Ben White, she arrives at the super hotel and is one of several journalists, each one, after the other with a few minutes with Ben, she is nervous, doesn’t know what to say and bumps into and spills things, causing Ben to compare her to Peter Sellers, a running joke in the book, until the final minute of the interview when she asks him, almost a psychoanalyst’s question, in the opening quote, giving him the opportunity to answer and explain a little what is his life.

So begins an improbable on-off relationship between the two with Ben turning up at her flat in Paris with his King Kong bodyguard, arranging for her to attend a Doctor Who convention in London when he is there.

Ben is then chosen to be the next 007 and Marianne is sent to interview him (at his request) and at the end of the slot she realises they have not talked about the subject of the interview, and Ben answers:

Don’t worry. You’re going to write that I’ve read all of Ian Flemming’s books. That I spent my childhood playing spies. That in the nineties, my idol…
Oh yes, but no. Because it’s not true.
What water lily did you come out of, Froggy? Almost everything that is said about me is false, you know, invented, doctored. Scripted.***

After an argument, Ben’s management team put in place a screen to end their relationship, as it would appear happens after short relationships:

I was hoping for an answer, and I received it. Straight in my face.
One hundred and twenty thousand euros.
It’s written in black and yellow, with lots of little zeros queuing up to insult me.
I’ve been dumped by a law firm. Collins, Webber & Abrahamson, headquartered in New York, branches everywhere.
“The parties concerned undertake not to disclose any information, testimony or material evidence concerning all their private exchanges…“***

The book was read for the Roman de Rochefort prize, not an obvious choice for this selection, but there is usually a book that is a bit less « serious » in the list. A light and pleasant read, I did enjoyed it. I would not expect it to be the winner.

First published in French by Flammarion in 2025 as “Paris Hollywood”

*** Microsoft Word Translate with my improvements

The quotes as read in French before translation

—A propos…Ça finit presque toujours mal pour vous, a l’écran. Dans Z-End, dans Nevilles’s Cross ou La Chevauchée des ténèbres, et même dans White Trash…
C’est une question ?
—Oui. Pourquoi vous mourrez tout le temps ?
—Tiens, elle est bonne, celle-là. C’est une première. Pourquoi ? Aucune idée. Peut-être que ça m’excite parce-que c’est moins définitif…
—Vous faites ce métier « parce-que c’est moins définitif ? »
Il m’a regardée d’un drôle d’air. Flottant, comme à la surface d’un étang.
Puis une blonde a passé la tête entre les   arbustes et le biceps monumental de King Kong :
« Ben, la voiture est prête… »
Il n’a même pas tourné la tête.
« Plus tard. On n’a pas fini. »
Après une seconde d’insistance muette elle avait disparu.
« Excusez-moi. Je suis attendu ailleurs. »
—A cette heure-ci ? 
—Oui, à cette heure-ci. Vous comprenez pourquoi « je meurs tout le temps » ? Ça me donne l’occasion de m’allonger. »

T’inquiète. Tu vas écrire que j’ai lu tous les bouquins de Ian Flemming. Que j’ai passé mon enfance à jouer aux espions. Que, dans les années quatre-vingt-dix, mon idole…
Ah oui, mais non. Puisque c’est pas vrai.
Tu sors de quel nénuphar, Froggy? A peu près tout ce qu’on dit sur moi est faux, tu sais. Inventé, trafiqué. Scénarisé.

J’espérais une réponse, je l’ai reçue. En pleine poire.
Cent vingt mille euros.
C’est écrit noir sur jaune, avec plein de petits zéros qui font la queue pour m’insulter.
Je me fais larguer par un cabinet d’avocats. Collins, Webber & Abrahamson, siège à New York, succursales partout.
“Les parties concernées s’engage à ne divulguer aucun élément d’information, témoignage ou preuve matérielle concernant l’ensemble de leurs échanges privés…“