1991 - Franck Thilliez

There is inevitably quite a bit of interest in retrospectively going further back into the career of an established crime thriller figure like Commissioner Franck Sharko. Franck Thilliez takes us back then to 1991 to the first murder case undertaken by Franck Sharko as a inspector recently appointed to a post in Paris. Anyone familiar with Sharko knows that what happened a short time afterwards in the first written Sharko novel Train d'enfer pour Ange rouge knows how deeply he has been marked by his experiences personally and professionally, so it comes as little surprise that his first case is also a very unusual and disturbing one that also challenges him on a personal level.

There are a couple of cases that land on the desk of the 30 year old inspector in December 1991. Sharko, who has been in the service for seven years in provinces and in Lille, has only recently moved to Paris and is sent to look through the archives of a case that has remained open but unresolved for several years. Three young women, around 30 years old, were abducted from underground carparks between 1986 and 1989 in the southern districts of the city, brutally raped and murdered. There has been no progress or leads since in l’affaire des Disparues since then, and no further killings, so the idea is that it needs a fresh set of eyes. Soon Sharko is intrigued by a page missing from the binder that holds notes and observations from the investigating officers on the case. 

Meanwhile, a young man has been sent an obscure message with a link to a poem by Baudelaire from Les Fleurs du mal that leads him to a disturbing photograph. By chance, it's Sharko who he meets at the station and, recognising the danger to the woman tied up in the photo, Sharko takes to the road to woods of Yvelines outside Paris, to the a container workshop of Delphine Escremieu. Too late of course, the fate suffered by the young woman on the bed is horrendous, a shocking introduction for the new detective. Despite the state of the room and body however, this was no frenzied attack, rather - like the letter and photographs leading to the location - signs of a planned and staged killing. And, just to further puzzle the police, the room is locked from the inside with no windows or other exits. What is even stranger is that when identifying the body, Delphine's parents say it's not their daughter.

“Dès qu’il y a un soupçon d’intelligence dans la tête d’un criminal, ça complique les choses”, a colleague, Glichard colleague tells Sharko at scene, a lesson he will find to be true in the years to come. And this one, who earns the nickname le Méticuleux, is playing a clever and very complicated game with the police. His activities however are not only of an extraordinary brutality, but he appears to be leading the police towards another revelation. One of those factors that appears to be significant is the photographs of young children found at the scene, all 8 or 9 years old and naked, suggesting that they have been abused.

1991 is an opportunity for Thilliez to go old school. It might not seem that long ago, but even in 1991 police affairs and attitudes were handled quite differently. There are no mobile phones and the expansion of the Internet is a way off yet, meaning long hours put in searching through hardcopy files in dusty archives. The Minitel, a precursor to the Internet popular in France, is useful and used often here, but we are far away from the speed of modern computer searches. Even DNA analysis in its early stages and only just starting to have an impact on crime investigation. But Thilliez isn't just going back to 1991 for the sake of nostalgia. The way his police colleagues operate here to different rules and methods is significant to Sharko who is just finding his feet in the middle of an extraordinary case. Or cases.

What is different and great about this book is how much we get to learn about the team that Sharko starts out with in 36 Quai des Orfèvres. There are a wide range of characters and personalities here, each with different levels of experience and their own ways of operating inside and outside the rules. You could see this as a formative experience for the new man in 36, not least in his experiences of the darker side of crime and murder in this case. The case of le Méticuleux is thrilling, shocking and full of surprises. Yes, it's another cat and mouse chase, the criminal leading the police on, playing with them, but if you think this is just a game, a puzzle for the initiation of the young inspector Sharko to work out, you will find it is no less dark, dangerous and otherworldly than the later cases we are now more familiar with.

Thilliez might even attempt to take on a little too much here, going a little bit overboard with the horror of the killings and mutilations, with hints at voodoo rituals, toxic substances and 'zombies' - none of which play a really significant role in the case - but genetics are again a common factor here as in many other Sharko cases. Thilliez has a way of making it work however, a factor that gives his writing its unique character. What is certain however is that 1991 is never dull for a second, with the cases of Mr Meticulous, the Disappeared Women cold case and a few other connected situations and experiences each getting more and more surprising each chapter. It seems one step forward two back at times, but all in the service of a fascinating thriller.

Reading notes: 1991 by Franck Thilliez was published in France in 2021 by 12-21. As none of his works are yet published in English to my knowledge, I read this in French in the Amazon Kindle edition. In his afterword, Thilliez describes how going back in time helped get through the 2020 lockdown. I think this is a cue now to finally bite the bullet - despite knowing how horrifically things turn out from subsequent works - and get around to Train d’enfer pour Ange rouge for my next Thilliez Sharko read.