Alex - Pierre Lemaitre - A stunning entrance to the international crime fiction stage

A police man carrying the burden of a personal tragedy, forced to take up a case that reminds him of the tragedy? Check. A policeman who is confrontational, prickly and impervious to authority? Check. A higher official who seems to have bone to pick with the policeman, trying to bring him down a peg? Check. With such standard templates, Pierre Lemaitre's 'Alex' does not start on a very promising note, but one cannot guess in his wildest imaginations what is going to happen in the course of the novel. 'Alex', a 30 year old women is kidnapped at the beginning of the novel and Camille Verhoeven is assigned the case. Verhoeven's wife was kidnapped and murdered a few years ago and Verhoeven has not yet come to terms with it when this case is assigned to him.

Lemaitre does not unravel the novel with one clue leading to the next, with each opening new doors till we reach the end. No, what he does is more complicated. He solves one problem while creating a new problem for Verhoeven and us reader to mull about. It's not just for Verhoeven or us,the problems created are for Lemaitre too as we think, 'ah, let's see how he gets out of this' and yes, he does get out of it gracefully, exceeding our expectations. It's as if Lemaitre wanted to test himself, by keep setting new roadblocks for himself during the course of the novel and see how he could clear them.   And these are not just small clues or small solutions, but those which completely alter the novels course and how we look at it. It is, as they say in Mumbai tapori lingo 'Ekdum Jhakaas'.

Just as we get used to Lemaitre's  stringing us along and starting feeling a bit complacent, he throws us another googly at the end of the first part. What started off as standard crime fiction, morphs into a thriller which reminds one of 'Anatomy of a Manhunt', 'Anatomy of a Kill'  portions of 'The Day of the Jackal'. No, this is not a spoiler and the novels have nothing similar, it's just that the atmosphere and the tension created reminds one of it. One watches the happenings like he would follow two top players in opposite sides of the draw scything through the opposition, anticipating with fearful excitement the summit clash in the final. Just as we await the final confrontation, Lemaitre throws us another 'doozy'  which leaves us dazed as we lurch into the final part.

What we see in the final part is far more horrifying than the events of the previous parts as we finally understand the motivations of the characters and more than that come face to face with a deviant mind that is so rooted in reality. It leaves us with the sobering thought as to who can be trusted and who is safe in this world.  The manner in which the revelations themselves  occur are a delight though, where Verhoeven and his team work like a spider spinning it's web, waiting for the accused to trip on his own lies and catch him in their net. It just shows that, even with all the technological/scientific advancements,  policing is at it's core about a lot of legwork, painfully gathering evidence, with all the advancements acting as support ,rather than replacing it. Just as we come to turns with the horror unraveled, Lemaitre gives us one final shock, not a 'twist in the tail of the tale' but  'a twist in the twist in the tail of the tale'. It's the only part where I would crib a bit, not because it's not logical (Lot's of clues on this are scattered beforehand, which we understand only now) but that this sort of trick has been handled elsewhere too. Even one of the high priests of crime fiction has done it (mentioning the story/author would be a spoiler though), though it must be said Lemaitre does this trick in a much better manner, without requiring us to to need any suspension of disbelief. Its just that Lemaitre has completely flummoxed at each turn with unique twists, that this final twist seems a bit bland (though in other lesser works, it would be the high point of the entire novel). But it's an ending that does serve a certain purpose and as I write it, in fact it does seem to be the only logical ending, rather than the twist that precedes it. But all the great works in crime fiction, finally we are not left with just a sense of justice happening, but with a sense of loss as we meditate on the events of the past and see how/whether any of this could have been avoided, as there are no final victors when violence is involved. 

Throughout the novel, as while as relentlessly hammering us with this twists, Lemaitre pulls no punches in detailing the brutality involved in the present as well as the past. As the past unravels, we understand that this is no gratuitous brutality, described for the sake of shocking readers, but a reaction to the brutality that happened earlier. The entire novel is set in simple present/present continuous tense which is disconcerting, because it's like watching the events unfold right before our eyes and not like listening to a narration by the author. We get the feeling like the author himself is clueless like Veerhoven and the readers as to how things will turn out  (though this is just a trick of the mind) and this is a scary thought when we feel that no one (including the author) knows what is going to happen. 

And as befitting a series of novels, the main characters are well etched too. Along with standard criteria that is needed for policemen in such novels (mentioned at the beginning of the post), Verhoeven has also some distinct qualities. For one his height is 4'11. It could just be another way of  Lemaitre differentiating his works from the clutter, or it could also be a homage to the French's greatest general, the 'Le petit caporal' (though there are calls to reconsider the myth about the general's height). Like Napolean, Verhoeven marshals his troops well, has a great relationship with them (in spite of his prickliness) and has their unquestioned loyalty. He has his moments of weakness though, which endears him more to us. His lieutenants, Louis and Armand are also characters one would like to spend time with, particularly the modern day 'Uncle Scrooge', Armand. The relationship between them is woven well into the novel, without intruding on it's core. As the other novels in the series get translated, we should get to know them more.

This is the first novel of Lemaitre to be translated in English and he does make a grand entrance to the international crime fiction stage holding us completely riveted. Just recommending this novel would be an injustice, this is a must read for all crime fiction aficionados. This stunning 'tour de force' is a keeper.

Missing -Karin Alvtegen

When we first see Sibylla, she is  dining at the Grand Hotel's magnificent French dining room. She looks the part of the successful executive unwinding after a tough day at office. But why is her suit then having a false label (is she so concerned about appearances that she resorts to such falsehood?), why is the waist button of her skirt replaced by a safety-pin (if she can dine in such a posh hotel, couldn't she have put on a new dress before coming to dinner?), why is she thinking of stealing the towels in the hotel rooms (is she a kleptomaniac?). Because Sibylla is nothing like what seems to be. She is in her early thirties, has been living underground for the past 15 years or so and is now trying to sponge off a costly dinner from another customer. She succeeds in both getting her dinner and also avoiding the advances of her patron. But the next day when he is found murdered, Sibylla is on the run, accused of the murder. Multiple murders occur as Karin alternates events from the present with those from the past, giving us bits and pieces of Sibylla's past life.

The concept of living 'on the road'  has occurred a legendary status, but it is still a lifestyle that is admired by a lot, but not attempted by many voluntarily. The reason being that it is not as fun as it may seem from the outside (how much fun can one have when he/she doesn't know when the next meal will come and has been living with this uncertainty for years) and Karin gives us a non-celebratory, hard hitting account of the life which leaves us with mixed feelings. While one cannot but marvel at the ingenuity shown by Sibylla in getting by having almost nothing, we keep thinking about the circumstances that would force someone to choose such a lifestyle, voluntarily excluding oneself completely from society. As we get know about events from Sibylla's past, we understand her rationale for renouncing her past life and even empathize with her. It's a creepy account of psychological abuse heaped upon her by own mother Beatrice, with her stony silences, subtle condescending attitude, studied ignoring of her daughter to achieve her ends, which are more painful than a stinging slap across the face (excellent observation of human behavior by Karin). The irony here is that Beatrice wouldn't have any inkling of the damage she was causing her daughter (or at-least not openly accept). From her viewpoint, she would have been doing her best and Sibylla would be the ungrateful creature for not understanding her mother's love. Whatever the motivation of Beatrice, the situation at home makes Sibylla insecure, feeling at fault for even things that are beyond her control, always in a state of tension as to whether she has displeased her mother in anyway, torn between the conflicting feelings of obedience and wanting to break free. All this results in a lot of repressed feelings and as in such cases, the breakdown when it happens is of epic proportions and that's what happens with Sibylla, resulting in her voluntary exile to the margins of society. The irony of the title hits us when we realize that though Sibylla has been living like this for 15 odd years, no one seems to have missed her (until the murders occur and society wakes up to the fact that there is a person called 'Sibylla'). There are so many of these kind of missing people, people who are present and yet not present, visible yet as good as invisible, people whom their immediate kith/kin and society has a whole do not seem to realize that they have gone missing.

One is reminded of 'Lisbeth Salander' while reading the novel. Like Lisbeth, Sibylla is spunky, detests authority, doesn't care much for society and looks to lead life on her own terms. They have their points of divergence too  as Sibylla is has come from a upper-middle class/rich household, didn't face any physical abuse (though the mental manipulation would more than make up for it). She is not your usual 'super-heroine' who is always ready to kick ass. The shadows of her past are always dogging her, she has her moments of indecision, moments where she feels like just giving up on everything. But she manages to find some inner resource of strength (or hate against society?) to take the next step and proceed further. Karin is her best in these portions where she shows us the dynamics of the interplay in human relationships and when she takes us into the vortex of the human mind. You do have female protagonists in works of 'Helen Tursten', Yrsa Sigurdardottir' etc.  Yes, they are a change from the mostly male protagonists of crime fiction, but they conform to the archetype of the working women  who struggle to balance their personal and professional lives but manage to do a good job of both. Salander and Sibylla though are nothing like them, they blaze a new trail for female protagonists in crime fiction, in which I hope to see other writers proceeding (before turning the prototype into a cliche). I would have like to know more about Sibylla, but since this is a standalone novel there is no hope for it.

The best works in crime fiction (any genre fiction) are the ones that go beyond the conventions of their genre without losing out on the core. While Karin does a great job in the former, it is in the latter that she falters. Sibylla is on the run, multiple murders occur for which she is accused, but none of the tension that should arise from such a situation seeps through to us. This could very well be the result of Karin's masterful evocation of Sibylla's past whereby we are so caught up in that the actual core of the book seems secondary. But whatever the reason, as a genre fiction the book does suffer a bit. The assurance that Karin shows while dealing with relationships/people is in stark contrast to the haphazard manner in which the core of the story ties up, so much so that it wouldn't be much of a surprise to know that 2 different people wrote the different parts. It's not that one expects very professional sleuthing here, after all Sibylla is an amateur and that too without any contact with society for a long time, so one does expect a few missteps in Sibylla's pursuit of the truth. But the hurried manner in which everything gets resolved at the end is so fast that everything seems to happen and end in a flash and requires a giant leap of faith to digest. 

Contrast this with the relationship between Sibylla and Patrik, a 15 year old who gets acquainted with Sibylla and wants to help her out. With very little real time (as in the novel) to flesh this out, Karin does a first rate job it. Though it is her vagabond lifestyle that initially fascinates Partik, he probably being a nerd (with some hints thrown about it about him not liking sports, more into computers etc) sees a kindred spirit in Sibylla, a person who is also on the outside. Patrik also reminds Sibylla of her past in a certain way, which adds to the bond that Sibylla feels with him. Though the novel ends before it is more fleshed out, you feel that Karin has got a lot  from the relationship. Yes, you feel to know how/whether this relationship would progress, but that's in a good way and not like the resolution of the murder where you feel shortchanged. 

Though the book has some flaws  I recommend it, as Karin's is an edgy, assured (in most parts) voice, a voice that cuts through the bland murmurings of conventional crime fiction, one that is not not unduly worried about the norms of the genre (much like her heroine). I for one hope to listen to more of this voice in the future.