The Booker Prize longlist was announced on the 28th of July, but that’s 12 books! The problem is that once again, I won’t have enough time for the shortlist this year, what with other engagements, laziness etc, etc. So I thought if I can out guess the official jury I can maybe only read 6 and begin on the longlist date.
What are my chances I thought? Nailed on to get at least one right, two right seems good odds too so that will reduce my shortlist workload
But what about choosing well, even emulating the jury? Well 3 out of 6 would be good so lets go for it and outguess the jury!
So here are my 6 from twelve, the unofficial Shortlist
Can The official jury match these choices? I doubt it!
The end of everything , M John Harrison (Serpents Tail)
Black bag, Luke Kennard (John Murray)
The renovation, Kenan Orhan, (Hamish Hamilton)
The vivisectors, Missouri Williams(4th Estate)
May we feed the king, Rebecca Perry (Granta )
Helen of nowhere, Malenna Goodman (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
A stranger comes to town. He walks along a dusty road, fields of lavender on one side, a placid green river on the other. The sun beats down on his bare head and he carries only a battered knapsack over one shoulder. He is young, barely twenty, and walks tall and straight like ballet dancer ora soldier who has never seen war. The town is a sleepy hamlet in the south of France. The stranger is Joseph Adelaide. He clutches a letter in his hand. He has read it over and over but it contains only one word:
Venez
My second Waterstones’ debut fiction prize in a fortnight after May We Feed the King and to my mind a second success. The book concerns the relationships between three characters, the first two are the fictional painter and erstwhile friend of Cézanne, Edouard Tartuffe, living as a hermit in a remote village he never leaves, and his niece Sylvette, or Ettie, who seems to exist in the background, doing everything for him so that he need only concentrate on his painting.
This situation is then slowly put in question by the arrival of Joseph, described in the opening quote in Lucy Steeds careful, precise prose, told alternately in two voices, those of Ettie and Joseph. Two years after the end of the First World War, the young Joseph, a conscientious objector, has the opportunity to interview Tartuffe, or Tata as he is known. Joseph discovers a tyrannical painter, there is only room for him:
‘Don’t!’ barks a voice as Joseph reaches out a hand. ‘Do not… touch… the food!’ Tata comes up behind Joseph and yanks him roughly away. ‘I told you! I told you not to touch anything!’ His face is red and he gives a snort like a bull, then turns and strides back to his paintbrushes. ‘Come!’
Joseph struggles with his subject and quickly notices Ettie, treating her normally and politely, or as much as Tata allows:
Ettie treads the unlit corridors, trailing her hands along the rough plaster walls. She moves from room to room, tidying away loose paintbrushes, returning stray corks to bottles of wine. She opens the back door and strikes a match. Lights a cigarette. It is strange to have somebody look at her again.
Ettie gives him some keys to understand Tata’s painting but as she remarks at first to herself before later telling him “He is not looking properly” Joseph will need to learn to look properly as the mystery of the story slowly unveils itself.
IRISH ARTIST WINS £50,000 ART AWARD Irish Times, 14 October 1999 Donegal-based artist Saoirse Byrne has become the first Irish woman to win the prestigious Margaret Dowling Art Prize which recognises emerging artists around the world. …. Her work is featured from next month at the Raymond Frank Gallery in Dublin and runs through into the millennium in an exhibition entitled Lost Was Found.
Charleen Hurtubise has drawn here a picture of a child and then a woman, a true fighter but who life pushes seemingly from one point to another with only two options open, fight and hide her past or succumb.
Sarah (is that really her name?) is already fleeing her youth and America to save her life when she meets Paul on a plane to Dublin, she is fragile, vulnerable and Paul we feel can sense this, as they leave the plane Paul intervenes:
Sarah is ready to ditch Paul once the plane lands in Dublin, but he walks beside her along the jetway commenting on the damp, cold morning air they feel but cannot see. She doesn’t have a jacket. With every step closer to passport control, that sense she has always relied on kicks in, and a calm takes hold. She is in control. It unnerves her, then, when Paul begins issuing advice, as though he somehow suspects an uncertainty around her entry. He guides her by the elbow as they reach the channels, moving her toward the lane for EU citizens. “Keep moving,” he whispers, and Sarah feels unsure about his closeness, this sense he is doing her a favour. “Open the passport, hold the photo toward your man, and don’t stop moving.” The officer barely glances up as she holds the maroon passport book for inspection. With his nod, she is through. “That was easy, so,” Paul tells her.
Paul senses she has no where to go and no resources and proposes to ask if she can be put up at his parent’s house which she accepts temporarily. And so begins a struggle between Sarah’s will and Paul’s control. Sarah is fiercely independent and stays in a separate building at Paul’s parents house, it is there that she meets their builder, Daithí.
After making the mistake of going to bed with Paul once before leaving with Daithí, she falls pregnant and finds herself trapped by her false passport preventing her from going to England for a termination and the Eighth Amendment:
“In Ireland, the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution states the life of the mother is equal to the life of her unborn child.” “This is fucked up.” She drops the towel. He looks away from her nakedness. A wave of nausea overcomes her. She leans on the sink until it passes. He touches her back; she shakes him off. “You can’t force me to have a baby against my will.” “It is not my will or your will that matters now. You are in Ireland. You’re Irish, remember?” Paul challenges her. “Help me, Paul, please—” she pleads. “I am going to help you in every way possible. But I am a medical professional—and this is the life of my child.” She thinks of lying and telling him it is Daithí’s child, decides it better not to mention his name.
After the child is born, Saoirse as she is now known, after Daithí has proposed the name eventually brakes free from Paul and now lives with Daithí, but without confessing who she really is, fear building on fear.
Saoirse then wins the Art Award described in the opening paragraph, a tragedy for a woman who is trying to fly below the radar. A final tragedy then strikes her as the Millennium brings an astonishing coincidence, which is of course not one, as someone else with her name hits the news
IRELAND WELCOMES THE FIRST MILLENNIUM BABY Irish Times, 3 January 2000 As the last of the evening light faded, and the New Millennium crept closer, Dublin’s streets filled with revellers making their way to celebrations across the city. But for Sarah “Sasa” Walsh, celebrations were the last thing on her mind. Hours before midnight, Ms. Walsh, originally from Wexford, and recently returned from the US, boarded an ambulance at the home she shares with her extended family in Kilmainham.
What then happens when her past comes to light and turns out not to be as she has believed allows her into the light for the first time since her youth.
Again a well constructed and well told story with interesting and compelling characters which I thoroughly enjoyed.
First published in the UK by Eriu in 2026 as “Saoirse”
It was surprising to my mother that I wouldn’t want to go to the honors program at our state university. Surprising, more generally speaking, that I would want to venture outward into the world, when the world so clearly had lost its way. Out in the coastal cities, nuclear families were an endangered species. Children ran barefoot in the streets while their fathers philandered in third-floor walk-ups and their mothers smoked crack on the stoops. Some women didn’t know they were women anymore. Some men didn’t know they were men. The birth rate was plummeting. Humanity was self-immolating. The white race was going extinct
Nathalie, the narrator, was a “flawless Christian woman”, brought upon Idaho, a survivor, who chose to leave initially to go to Boston to study, see the opening quote. After marrying Caleb, she eventually chooses to agree to his dream of living on a ranch.
My husband was not disciplined before he met me. He was the youngest of five boys, the runt of the litter in an American dynasty. His father was the latest senator in a long line of U.S. senators, currently barreling through a presidential bid (third time’s the charm!); his mother was a homemaker who had spent most of her life drowning in Chardonnay.
Nathalie then creates the dream ranch on social media, a very successful business, engaging the “angry women” and Nathalie like any successful businesswoman expands her operation, employing two Nannie’s to look after her four children and then farm hands to supplement her useless husband Caleb whose idea of running a ranch involves hours of watching conspiracy theories online. And who is Nathalie?
And who was I? A flawless Christian woman. The manic pixie American dream girl of this nation’s deepest, darkest fantasies. The mother every woman wanted to be, and the wife every man wanted to come home to. Like a nun in a porno, it didn’t make sense, but also, by God: it worked. My name is Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.
Where did it all turn? Nathalie needed a producer for her Yesteryear Ranch, and she hired a young woman, Shannon who looked on this idyllic internet production of Nathalie’s life with “coastal” views:
How does it feel to know that millions of people around the world know intimate details about your children? “I show only very selective moments of my children’s lives. And besides, none of them have any access to screens—have you seen the studies, by the way? Of what screen time does to children’s brains? If you ask me, my children are much better off in this household, where they occasionally show up in videos for my account, than in some other household where they’d be staring at an iPad all night. I mean, really.” Sympathetic cluck. “It’s an epidemic. So sad. You should look into that.”
Shannon is the stone in the shoe, she notices at a political drive for Caleb’s father that he is recirculating quotes and stories from Yesteryear Ranch as if real life, she influences Nathalie’s older daughter, Clementine, who decides she no longer wants to be filmed and she has an affair with Caleb. Nathalie then sacks her, but Shannon has hours of video about the ranch and a grievance.
Just where we think we are embarked on a very binary tale, the book launches into the past? As Nathalie Finds herself in an 1860’s version of her ranch with no electricity and living isolated in the wilderness with her family over at least a ten year period, living the real Tradwife life.
“Fuck you,” I snarl. The first time I’ve ever said that phrase aloud in my life. The man wipes his face with the back of his sleeve. Then he says, “A good wife doesn’t speak to her husband that way.” He rears back and slaps me so hard the whole world turns black.
Is this a modern idea provoking book? Not really, but it is a well written piece of fiction deconstructing many ideas of both sides of a political divide and of course exaggerating I hope.
First published in English by 4th Estate in 2026 as “Yesteryear”
The new queen is spirited, neat — a totally contained person. Women like her immediately, men think her unfoolish. Her mother had been ambitious in her plans for her daughter’s life — perhaps even spirited enough to secure her a King — but she had said, no, a little freedom, I beg you. So a brother was settled upon — a brother who would certainly never rise so high.
I guess you get used to not posting, and then you forget how and then you become apprehensive, so here I go again.
The initial narrator creates scenes to help breathe life into historic houses or palaces. Rebecca Perry in short paragraphs within short chapters brins us to see the passion the woman creating these scenes brings to her work’ the fusion she feels with her subject
The rule is this: it must appear as if the person or people have just left the room.The viewer must feel as if the air is alive with their energy, that they only just missed them, that they will be back at any moment. If this isn’t the case, the scene is no more than an arrangement of objects. The scene is dead.
But what is her subject? In her current commission she is lucky enough to have access to exceptional archives which she searches as she tries to find her angle to tell the story she will allude at, from the seven hundred years of history of the palace.
And then she has it, the King is the third brother, never meant to be King and never wanting to be. As his wife, we understand from the opening quote. But the court needs a King has fear of a vacuum. As the King refuses to make decisions, The Chief Advisor tries to keep the many possible future war chiefs, if the vacuum persists, occupied
The army is dispatched without the King’s approval.
The order is given by the Chief Advisor, in the dead of night, involving as few men (mouths) as possible. The people must believe that it was the King’s bidding, or there will be chaos..
There is no privacy for the King, he cannot even pick his own flowers. Rebecca Perry brings across the total helplessness of his position, a hostage to the court. Did the previous King let himself die from this same despair?
An example is given by the visit of his cousin’s wife, he is the king of a neighbouring realm.
The cousin’s wife has remained at court but the heat of her presence has cooled, and chatter about her — and what she is to the King — has died down. It is no thing of note, after all, for a man to be bewitched by fucking. There is only so long news of their coupling can sustain the appetites of the court, then it is on to the next thing.
Despite the impossibility of his position, one night, the King, the Queen and the Cousin’s wife manage to disappear, there is no explanation nor solution in the archives. This is the moment the first narrator chooses for her work, not fully appreciated by the committee commissioning her.
A splendid first novel, I read it in a single session.
First published in English by Grants Publications in 2026 as “May We Feed The King”
Having finished 4 of the 6 shortlisted books for the readers prize well in advance, with a 67% chance of having read the winner I can officially present ‘my’ winner
Now this year’s selection was a good millesime, I enjoyed all four books which I read, no mean feat for four crime books which can be pretty indigestible in large quantities:
Petite-Ville, Mélika Abdelmoumen – Mémoire d’Encrier Didn’t read this one.
On ne mange pas les cannibales, Stéphanie Artarit – Belfond What a year this is a second exceptional tale which I highly recommend
Le Livre des Prodiges, d’Olivier Ciechelski – Le Rouergue An often told thème, but in new surroundings. Not enough to make this a winner for me.
Les Braises de l’incendie, d’Éric Couty – Liana Levi An interesting investigation, although the second part of the book “the effect” was not, to my mind, really original. Again, not a winner for me.
Bleus, blancs, rouges, Benjamin Dierstein – Flammarion 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
34 m², Louise Mey – Le Masque Didn’t make it onto my reading list.
Then came my deliberation: Two clear favourites
So in second place with an honourable mention comes Bleus, blancs, rouges, Benjamin Dierstein – Flammarion
And a breath of fresh air the winner is On ne mange pas les cannibales, Stéphanie Artarit – Belfond
But if , on the day, the jury gets it wrong and chooses one of the other books, this year it will still have been a good choice!
My congratulations to all of the entrants.
***Breaking news***
The jury has passed their exam and chosen the right book
Yes:
On ne mange pas les cannibales, Stéphanie Artarit – Belfond has been chosen
“Don’t be overzealous.” This is what Judge Krause has been told since he was appointed to investigate the case of the Hotel Caumartin. On the night of April 8, 2005, this dilapidated social hotel where African immigrants were crammed together was reduced to ashes by a violent fire. How can we not be zealous when 28 people have lost their lives?***
My fourth book this year for the Readers Prize, 2026, at the Quai du Polar in Lyon is The Fire’s Embers. The book is loosely based on recent French history, drawing a cause and effect between the way immigrants were treated in Paris at the turn of the century, epitomised here by a fire in a low cost hotel, the numerous African immigrants that died and the way. And the Jihadist recuperation of the immigrants in years to come.
– At first glance, they are convicts. They started by killing the maid and the African infantry men, grabbed their weapons and rushed into the house where they killed the last soldier and the Wandells. Then they searched the premises before fleeing through the back door, disguised with the soldiers’ jackets.***
A judge, Krause and a lawyer, Ségurel work together against the request made to not be overzealous and discover the causes and responsibilities behind the event, people making money out of other’s misery and the corruption that makes it possible.
9 years later they discover that one of the young people who fled the fire and whom they helped to avoid prosecution has been recuperated:
Tano Diomandé left France in 2012 to go to Yemen. – In Yemen? According to his contact in an intelligence service, he joined a group called AQAP, a branch of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Other French people are there. No news since. The most likely is that he was killed while waging his holy war.***
An interesting investigation, although the second part of the book “the effect” was not, to my mind, really original. Again, not a winner for me.
First Published in French as Les braises de l’incendie in 2025 by Liana Levi
*** Microsoft translation, corrected where necessary
The quotes as read in French before translation
« Ne pas faire de zèle. » Voilà ce qu’on rabâche au juge Krause depuis qu’il est chargé d’instruire l’affaire de l’hôtel Caumartin. Dans la nuit du 8 avril 2005, cet hôtel social délabré où s’entassaient des immigrés africains a été réduit en cendres par un violent incendie. Comment ne pas faire de zèle quand 28 personnes ont perdu la vie ?
Tano Diomandé a quitté la France en 2012 pour partir au Yémen. – Au Yémen ? D’après son contact dans un service de renseignement il a rejoint un groupe baptisé Aqpa, une branche d’Al-Qaïda dans la péninsule arabique. D’autres Français sont là-bas. Aucune nouvelle depuis. Le plus probable est qu’il se soit fait tuer en menant sa guerre sainte.
And then the ministers came and went, they never stayed long, they left for the private sector or in another ministry, or they tried to become presidents or party leaders, and they were replaced by another who would also be just passing through, while the institution endured as it also endured, in the streets and behind the facades of buildings, violence, misery and madness. A whole despair that had to be maintained in proportions deemed reasonable by these people who were never seen and whose word was nevertheless indisputable.***
My third book this year for the Readers Prize, 2026, at the Quai du Polar in Lyon is The book of Progidies, referencing the bible: » For there will rise up false Christs and false prophets, displaying wonderful signs and prodigies, so as to deceive« . Nora, a devout Christian, is a young police officer serving in the unusual background of Gennevilliers, the Port on the river Seine serving Paris, everything for Paris comes down the Seine from the port of Le Havre. The police force has been left largely to itself to show good crime figures for the politicians as illustrated in the opening quote. Nora is idealistic and when a woman is beaten in her home but refuses to file a complaint she wants to intervene to protect her, and complains that she is just keeping a record of crimes and not preventing them, but as her senior colleague says:
Sometimes I feel like I’m useless. I have the impression that I am keeping a record of crimes and misdemeanours, not doing everything to prevent them. “Maybe you have chosen the wrong vocation, then. Because the principle is that the police officer intervenes precisely because an offence has been committed. Why it was committed, why there are crimes and misdemeanors, that’s philosophy. Or politics, if you prefer. And that’s not what we’re here for.***
One evening when Nora is out running in the dock area in Gennevilliers she is witness to a cargo container being dropped in water in the docks, she then falls in the water in strange conditions and is rescued by someone who is not there when she comes around.
So begins a story of illegal prostitution, the girls being brought in from Africa by container, of Gang warfare and of the police being complicit to keep the crime figures low, yes, checks and balances, followed by the inevitable police corruption.
But Nora is there! An often told thème, but in new surroundings. Not enough to make this a winner for me.
First Published in French as Le livre des prodiges in 2025 by Rouergue Noir
*** Microsoft translation, corrected where necessary
The quotes as read in French before translation
Et puis les ministres passaient, ils ne restaient jamais longtemps, ils partaient dans le privé ou dans un autre ministère, ou ils essayaient de devenir présidents ou chefs de partis, et on les remplaçait par un autre qui ne serait que de passage lui aussi, alors que l’institution, elle, perdurait comme perduraient, dans les rues et derrière les façades des immeubles, la violence, la misère et la folie. Tout un désespoir qu’il fallait, donc, maintenir dans des proportions jugées raisonnables par ces gens qu’on ne voyait jamais et dont la parole était pourtant indiscutable.
Parfois j’ai l’impression d’être inutile. J’ai l’impression de tenir le registre des crimes et des délits, pas de tout faire pour les empêcher. – Peut-être que vous vous êtes trompée de vocation, alors. Parce que le principe, c’est que le policier intervient justement parce qu’une infraction a été commise. Pourquoi elle a été commise, pourquoi il y a des crimes et des délits, ça c’est de la philosophie. Ou de la politique, si vous préférez. Et nous on n’est pas là pour ça.
I hadn’t smelled the perfumed scent of panthers since I was a child, when my mother was eaten by one of them. We had ventured into the forest and let the musky scent of his fur guide us. She looked as if she were dead, harmless. We have continued to move forward. Fast as lightning, the beast had pounced on me because I was young and weak at the time, and its claws had entered my back. My mother had intervened to protect me and I had been able to climb to the top of a tree, as she had taught me to do. From above, I had seen the leopard tear her to pieces. And my heart was beating to the point of breaking. Since then, I know the fate it reserves for its prey. I didn’t know that humans could give off this scent until you were thrown into my cage tonight***
My second book this year for the Readers Prize, 2026, at the Quai du Polar in Lyon is On ne mange pas des cannibales, or We don’t eat cannibals in English. From the idea of Cyrulnik of animals having thought without language, Stéphanie Artarit has spun a facinating story of evil, of Martin Rapaz, an evil that humans can’t detect but which animals can scent, illustrated by the thoughts of Adam, a chimpanzee at the zoo.
“The day we understand that a thought without language exists in animals, we will die of shame for having locked them up in zoos and humiliated them with our laughter.” Boris Cyrulnik, Animals Also Have Rights (collective, 2013)***
You’ve got to enjoy the names Artarit has chosen throughout the book, for instance the Rapaz family or the soft, vulnerable Rapaz daughter, Bambi. Bambi is brought up in a severely disfunctional family where members go missing, welfare scams and incest are the norm.
No one had been told that the father had died, or that he had been buried under the tree: “We will continue to receive his war pension, underground is like in the cemetery and no one must stick his nose in our affairs.” The poetry of the Rapaz. When the twins were born, the first thing the mother said was that these two, as they had come out, might also bring compensation. Martin had hissed between his teeth: “The reward of the rabouin.” That was what he called the devil. Bambi understood that for being wounded in war and being born an idiot, there was reward. A kind of bounty for evil and injustice. A little money to console and repair.***
Bambi regularly sneaks into the local zoo to escape her home life where she quietly observes the animals. Noel Rivière, the zoo director takes pity on the young girl and offers her a job in the zoo, initially to observe the animals. And so begins an enthralling tale of vicious murder and vengeance, the capture of Martin Rapaz by Noel Rivière then locking him in a cage for more than a decade with Adam the chimpanzee that had just killed the Alpha male chimpanzee in the zoo. Will either of them change?
After reading the first book, Bleus, blancs rouges by Dierstein I wondered if I needed to read the other books selected this year, it was that good. But what a year this is a second exceptional tale which I highly recommend
First Published in French as On ne mange pas les cannibales in 2025 by Belfond
*** Microsoft translation, corrected where necessary
The quotes as read in French before translation
Je n’avais pas senti l’odeur des panthères parfumées depuis mon enfance, quand ma mère s’était fait dévorer par l’une d’elles. Nous nous étions aventurés dans la forêt et laissé guider par les effluves musqués de sa fourrure. Elle avait l’air d’être morte, inoffensive. Nous avons continué d’avancer. Rapide comme la foudre, la bête avait bondi sur moi parce que j’étais jeune et faible à l’époque, et ses griffes étaient entrées dans mon dos. Ma mère s’était interposée pour me protéger et j’avais pu grimper jusqu’à la cime d’un arbre, comme elle m’avait appris à le faire. D’en haut, j’avais vu le léopard la mettre en pièces. Et mon cœur battait à se rompre. Depuis je connais le sort qu’elle réserve à ses proies. J’ignorais que les humains pouvaient dégager ce parfum jusqu’à ce que tu sois jeté ce soir dans ma cage.
« Le jour où l’on comprendra qu’une pensée sans langage existe chez les animaux, nous mourrons de honte de les avoir enfermés dans des zoos et de les avoir humiliés par nos rires. » Boris Cyrulnik, Les animaux aussi ont des droits (collectif, 2013)
On n’avait dit à personne que le père était mort, ni qu’il avait été enterré sous l’arbre : « On continuera de toucher sa pension de guerre, sous terre c’est comme au cimetière et personne ne doit fourrer son nez dans nos affaires. » La poésie des Rapaz. Quand les jumeaux étaient nés, la première chose que la mère avait dite, c’était que ces deux-là, tels qu’ils étaient sortis, rapporteraient peut-être eux aussi une compensation. Martin avait sifflé entre ses dents : « La récompense du rabouin. » C’était comme ça qu’il disait pour le diable. Bambi avait compris que, pour avoir été blessé à la guerre et être né idiot, il y avait récompensation. Une sorte de prime pour le mal et l’injustice. Un peu d’argent pour consoler et réparer.
“The day we understood that a thought without language exists in animals, we will die of shame for having locked them up in zoos and humiliated them with our laughter.” Boris Cyrulnik, Animals Also Have Rights (collective, 2013)
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.
South of Paris books 