Peine capitale - Armand Delpierre

When I read Armand Delpierre's first novel Paris se lève last year it clearly looked like the opening shot fired on a new Paris police department series, but now that I reflect upon the title of that book and having read this second installment, it also appears to be a series that represents a kind of awakening for modern-day Paris connected with real-life incidents. Although the SRPJ 92 department cover the comparatively quiet business district of La Défence and suburban Courbeyvoie, Commissioner Lenfant's team soon found themselves caught up in the events that shocked everyone in Paris in January 2015. If that was a wake up call that the city's problems were becoming more extensive and creeping into all parts of the capital, the second book in the series Peine capitale (Capital Punishment) seems to bear that out.

Peine capitale retains a structure and drive similar to the first book, following a sequence of days broken up into morning, afternoon, evening and night and the tasks that various members of the team are working on in the period leading up to a major incident. Although initially somewhat confusing, the opening chapters reunite us with the key members of the SRPJ 92 team, but also hint at underlying disturbances currently brewing in the background. Some of these incidents appear relatively minor, but which when combined with what is happening elsewhere in the city, there is a suggestion that things are going to escalate into something more dangerous. Here, in late November 2018, three years after those events that shook the capital in Paris se lève, Paris - never quiet at the best of times - is being brought to a standstill and acts of violence through the Gilets jaunes protests.

While that is going on, one of the team, Michel Poirier, has been tasked with infiltrating one of the protest groups. Since that involves sitting discussing tactics over a few drinks, it seems well within Poirier's somewhat limited abilities, but he is determined to prove himself here. Elsewhere Commissioner Lenfant has asked Claire Fontaine to assist in the investigation of the body of the HR director in Comcyber, a cyber terrorism agency with connections to the military who has been found dead in the Seine. A recent disturbance in the district has also brought to light the activities of drug gangs operating in the city which have roots in Morocco and Corsica. The Corsican mafia aren't too happy that about a suspicion that the 'Blacks' are planning on taking their product directly to the users and leaving them out of the supply chain.

Meanwhile the new recruit to the team and central figure of the last book, Pierre-Louis Madec, also known as PLM, is out of the action at the start of Peine capitale, returning to his family in Brest on the news of the death of father. While there he plans to finish off affairs related to the break up of his marriage to Agnès, which is probably as well, as his romantic life in Paris is about to get more complicated. By the time he does come back, all these cases that the team are working on are swirling around, each filled with unknowns to Lenfant's team, meaning they could potentially go anywhere, but definitely heading for an explosive and violent confrontation of one kind or another. Although the French police are onto the drugs smuggling operation, tracking the progress of the shipment into Paris, things haven't gone smoothly and there are a number of factors that suggest that there is trouble ahead.

PLM is perhaps less of a central figure here, with other members of the team taking a lead in the developing cases, but otherwise it seems like Peine capitale is very similar in structure and slow-burning development to Paris se lève, not least in how the activities of an ensemble team all appear to be coming together and mixed in with real-life time period protests on the streets. Now that the introductions are out of the way however, although there are still developments and new recruits brought in, Peine capitale is very different read altogether. There is no longer any suggestion of this being a police procedural away from the main action in a sleepy business district of the city, but rather, serious crime now has its reach into every district of Paris. Maybe it's a sign of the times, and if Delpierre is going to progress that in line with historic events, it's an interesting line to follow in this series, giving it something of a distinction of its own.

Obviously, not every book can have the same terrorist related activities that took place in January 2015, and the Gilet jaunes protests might seem rather tame in comparison, but that's not entirely the point. Key to the development of the series are the smaller human stories. Not just the police officers who each have to deal with significant personal and professional issues, but here we also get the story of Coco and Bortek, who meet during the protests and experience the everyday pains and injustices of ordinary people on the streets: "Les petites injustices, les maigres mesquineries se succèdent dans notre quotidien." That quote might be in reference to a minor incident in a supermarket, but in wider society the same rules apply. "C’est ça, notre système". 

This is a welcome and necessary development in this excellent series, to its sense of the impact of crime and its connection with problems in our society. Not just in Paris. Coco and Bortek take a different approach to their problems, but it could easily go the other way. You might think that the whole thing doesn't cohere, that some of the stories rather fizzle out and don't deliver the expected fireworks of conventional crime dramas, but on a human level Armand Delpierre has created a much more realistic series, making connections between crime, justice and the people on the street, that still has plenty of intriguing elements to follow up.

Reading notes: Peine capitale by Armand Delpierre is published in France by Récamier, first edition in September 2023. It's available in paperback and eBook editions. I read the French language Kindle edition.