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 with a deep personal cost, although not why he retired to Nigeria, other than perhaps to put as much distance as possible between him and his previous life in Paris. What is clear is that he has no intention of returning. Inevitably that changes when a phone call from his old department tells him that his former police colleague and friend Commandant Louis Lefort has been murdered. And in strange circumstances.

His body has been found eviscerated in the bois de Vincennes, an area frequented - coincidentally? - by Nigerian prostitutes. One of their clients has stepped on the body and reported it to the police. The grim discovery of the eviscerated officer and mystery of what he was doing in such a notorious place takes on another dimension when what appears to be a voodoo doll is discovered placed inside his opened stomach. Having spent time in Nigeria the department believe they can use his knowledge of the region and its customs, and since it involves an investigation into the murder of a close friend, Philippe agrees to return in a consultative role.

He's not exactly delighted to be back in Paris, back at the scene of the case that broke him, the personal loss suffered (I won't need to read Les cicatrices de la nuit as I know who the killer is and who was his final victim). There is consequently a dark contemplative mood that lies over the story, one that dominates over the actual horror of what has happened to a senior police officer, although Galien does develop it further when another police officer is killed in a similar manner, with another voodoo doll left behind. There is a new recruit in the team however, Victor who is shown the ropes, so there is an attempt to bring some freshness and dynamic here, as well as a way in for the new reader to discover the character of the work and the individual officers of the team.

Somehow though it just doesn't come together, the various elements too disparate, the tone never really feeling appropriate for the circumstances. There is certainly a deeply depressive mood established through Valmy's dark contemplation and it is mirrored to some extent by the motivations of the killer, as we come to find out why they are acting in this manner. It's a tone that hangs heavy over the whole book. It's just the handling of the crime investigation that feels strange. There is some level of detail provided on the first two killings of police officers, but suddenly we find there are another five nameless victims, all within two days. It seems extraordinary that it could escalate this fast, without making as much of an impression as you think it might deserve, leaving me feeling that I must have skipped a couple of chapters.

It's surprising that the author doesn't really seem to care enough to let us in on who they are, where they happened or why the police have failed to apprehend a killer operating on this scale, or even how a killer has managed to successfully carry out these murders practically unseen. Yes, you can imagine that they might be partly sidetracked by the voodoo element, but that doesn't seem like sufficient reason for the lack of progress. All we have is Valmy brooding darkly and a killer with their own troubled thoughts and circumstances revealed. 

The author attempts to bring some kind of poetic treatment to the narrative, or aiming for a feverish quality, but lines like "L'ange du 36 traversa la pièce en moonwalk avant que le commissaire me prenne la parole" just feel awkward and meaningless. Le souffle de la nuit never seems to get its own feet on the ground, or likewise seems to moonwalk though it, digressive, hard to follow and unclear where it is going. I can't imagine how the mood will be any better in the third book in the series, Soleil levant, but I don't think I'll be trying it to find out.

Reading notes: Le souffle de la nuit by Alexandre Galien is published in France by Michel Lafon. I read the French pocket paperback edition.