Le bureau des affaires occultes - Éric Fouassier

One of the attractions of the historical crime thriller is that it has to rely on old-school methods and hands-on involvement, and you don't have to go too far back in time for that. What's interesting about Éric Fouassier's Le bureau des affaires occultes - apart from the intriguing title of course - it that it takes us right back to the earliest days of the police investigation in France. So in addition to the old-school police procedural investigation, we also have all the colour of a fascinating historical period as well to work through.

Set in France in 1830, much of the history of this period will be largely unknown to a non-native French person, although some names will jump out, not least Vidocq, who founded the police force in France around this time and who does indeed make an appearance here. 1830 is significant because of the unstable political situation of the time. Charles X has replaced by Louis-Philippe as King, but there are still many secret groups of conspirators at large, revolutionaries and anarchists, not to mention more common forms of social problems and disorder.

There are laws and guidelines that are already well-stablished for the behaviour and actions that a police officer can take, but as far as Inspector Valentin Verne, a police officer in charge of vice (moeurs), is concerned, there are some people who need to be leaned on a little heavier. When he assaults a well-known pimp called Grand-Jésus in street, he is less concerned with the young children he has recruited or the activities of the prostitutes (or indeed procedural regulations) than looking for information on a figure responsible for child abductions known as le Vicaire. He clearly has a personal interest in the person he is pursuing, but it happens to tie in to some other strange recent events that may even have a political angle to them.

Already earlier in prelude, we have been introduced to a young boy trapped in a cage of mirrors running from le Vicaire, and in another chapter the son of a wealthy businessman has jumped from a window after staring into a mirror soon after being introduced to a prospective and lucrative marriage arrangement. Valentin's investigation into these events take the reader through the colour and darkness of the period. There are then political plots, secret associations, secret passages and hidden rooms, an encounter with an actresses, a duel, dubious doctors and experiments, and it transpires that Valentin has some hidden talents, including being an expert in chemistry.

The title Le bureau des affairs occultes and some elements of the plot make it sound like there is a supernatural element to the book - the first in a series - but the agency that is set up at the end of the book is just one that is necessary to deal with underground activities: a kind of early secret service, exploring hidden plots and activities in a period of political unrest. The writing is well-balanced, there is a solid lead investigator with intriguing character traits and some demons of his own to work through. He does however also have a modern progressive sensibility that a modern reader can relate to.

As you might expect, the period drama tends to indicate a tendency towards melodrama and there are a few twists that are not totally unexpected, but while obviously fictionalised, it's not a completely romanticised view of the period. The occasional footnotes, the large bibliography at the end of the book and the author's own background - Fouassier has a doctorate in Pharmacy and Law, is a specialist in the history of medicine, and indeed teaches the subject at university - mean that this is assuredly authentic to the period.

Reading notes: Le bureau des affaires occultes by Éric Fouassier was first published in France in 2022 by Albin Michel. I read a 2025 paperback reprint of the 2022 Le livre de Poche edition. There are currently five books in this series (that's some rate of writing) and the author has written several other historical fiction works. I don't believe however any of Fouassier's books are available in English. I would say that I enjoyed the book and read a full three quarters of it before leaving it down for several months, only finishing it after reading six or seven other books, so I can't have found it that compelling. I'm not sure why I left it so long to finish - apart from the attraction of other books - as it is a good read and if there was nothing particularly off-putting about it, I would say that there is perhaps not enough in the writing style or the treatment to make it stand out for me. If I don't have any intentions of reading any further books in the series, it's probably just for the same reason that there are much more intriguing works out there to read in French.