Crossing
the Line: Paris Homocide #2 by Frédérique Molay and Anne
Trager (translator) (Le French Book, 2014, 280 pages, $27.33/$9.39)
is a police procedural set in Paris, the second English translation
of a series of novels featuring Chief Nico Sirsky of the elite
Criminal Investigation Department of the Paris Police. The first
novel by Molay to be translated into English, The
Seventh Woman succeeded in
creating the characters in two major settings, their police function
of solving intractable cases, and the domestic roilings of Sirsky's
finding a new love and beginning to work through the dissolution of a
marriage gone wrong. It succeeded beyond my expectations, and I
enjoyed the mystery, as it resolved itself from gruesome murders to
an tension filled climax. In all the areas where The
Seventh Woman succeeded,
Crossing
the Line fails. The tensions
in Sirsky's domestic life have fallen into the background, the
search for the killer seems rather routine, dialogue is wooden and
filled with unnecessary medical jargon, and the scenes of medical
dissection and training using multiple cadavers never rise to the
grisly horror Molay tells us is present. I finished reading this
novel only because I had enjoyed the first enough to give the second
an opportunity to find its way into my liking, but neither the plot
nor the characters work this time around.
Pharmacist
Bruno Guedj has died after agreeing to donate his body to science. At
the lab where such things happen, his body has been dissected and
various parts distributed for different medical specialties to work
on. Guedj's head, along with those of thirty nine others, are to be
the subject of training session for experienced dentists learning to
extract wisdom teeth. During this routine exercise, one pair finds a
funny looking filling and lifts it off, only to find a note concealed
beneath it. The note reads, “I was murdered.” There follows an
ever widening investigation into first Guedj and his family , then
extending to his colleagues and acquaintances while it follows up
several dead end paths before finding connections that rise higher
and higher into the French social and economic structure as well as
exploring aspects of medical ethics. The use of Internet chat lines
to help uncover the ultimate mystery is never effective.
Conversations meant to elucidate various issues seem stilted and
focused on providing needed information rather than increasing plot
tensions. The slow introduction of the maniacal killer, as the
investigation reaches ever closer, never creates enough tension to
capture the reader as it did in The
Seventh Woman. All told,
Crossing
the Line is a sodden mess of
leaden prose lacking passion, verisimilitude, or anything calculated
to capture and hold a reader.
Frédérique Molay
Writing has always been a passion for
Frédérique Molay. She graduated from France's prestigious Science
Po and began her career in politics and the French Administration.
She worked as chief of staff for the deputy mayor of
Saint-Germain-en-Laye and then was elected to the local government in
Saone-et- Loire. Meanwhile, she spent her nights pursuing the passion
she had nourished since penning her first novel at the age of eleven.
After The
Seventh Woman took France by
storm, Frédérique Molay dedicated her life to writing and raising
her three children. She has five books to her name, with three in the
Paris Homicide series. (from About the Author in the text) These
books were first published nearly a decade ago, and have been brought
to the U.S. in translations by Ann Trager.
Crossing
the Line: Paris Homocide #2
by Frédérique Molay and Anne Trager (translator) (Le French Book,
2014, 280 pages, $27.33/$9.39) does not live up to the promise of The
Seventh Woman. Though my
voice seems to be in the minority on this one, I do not recommend it.
The book was provided to me in an electronic galley by the
publisher through Edelweiss.
I read it on my Kindle.
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