Le souffle de la nuit - Alexandre Galien
The team of Alexandre Galien's police series are responsible for crime in the district to the eastern edge of the city, and as a former police officer, a gardien de la paix , working in this part of the city, the author clearly knows the district, the workings of the police service and the kind of crimes that take place there. I don't doubt the authenticity of his credentials, but partly due to the atypical nature of the crime here and the author's writing style, I wasn't convinced by his second novel featuring Commissioner Philippe Valmy, Le souffle de la nuit . At the start of this thriller, Valmy has now retired from the 36 after the affair recounted presumably in Les cicatrices de la nuit , which was awarded the 2020 Prix du Quai des Orfèvre. I haven't read the first book, so it's not immediately clear why Valmy has retired early from his career, or what has happened to leave him in a fairly troubled state. We do find out why later, and that events have come...