Lune captive dans un oeil mort - Pascal Garnier

When you open up a retirement village I suppose someone has to be the first to take up a place there. In Pascal Garnier's Lune captive dans un oeil mort, it's Martial and Odette Sudre who take up the first residence in Les Conviviales, a secure gated community for elderly residents in the south of France. It seems a bit strange at first, some concerns about who else will turn up, but all seems well enough when another couple, Maxime and Marlène Node take up residence, and then a single lady Léa whose female partner has just died. Eventually there's enough for Mr Flesh the security guard to keep an eye on, and for the community to bring in to keep the club-house going.

"Tout le monde a ses petits défauts..." Each of the residents have their own little quirks or personality flaws that becomes exaggerated in the environment under an oppressively hot summer, and they are further gripped by fear when Flesh tells them of a camp of gypsies in the vicinity. This comes ou in each of them in different ways; Nadine is overly find of cannabis and not in control of herself much less able to guide the others; Léa is having episodes where her mind goes absent; Odette is constantly waving away an invisible fly; sheltered Martial is getting caught up in morbid fantasies; and Marlène refuses to accept the death of her son long ago. Maxine's masculine insecurities however push him towards violence, and he has a gun.

Garnier's short novel gradually builds up a situation that is inevitably going to lead to trouble, perhaps more trouble than you might reasonably expect from a small group of older people in a retirement community, but it's true that everyone has their own little quirks that can intensify with age. It's intriguing then to wonder which of them is going to crack first here, and Garnier explores those character flaws in an original way with unexpected developments.

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