You can pre-order Paris Requiem...Here You can follow Chris Lloyd...Here You can follow Crime Cymru...Here 416 pages
NB I received a free copy of this book from Orion books in exchange for a fair and honest review
Paris, September 1940.
After three months under Nazi Occupation, not much can shock Detective Eddie Giral. That is, until he finds a murder victim who was supposed to be in prison. Eddie knows, because he put him there.
The dead man is not the first or the last criminal being let loose onto the streets. But who is pulling the strings, and why?
This question will take Eddie from jazz clubs to opera halls, from old flames to new friends, from the lights of Paris to the darkest countryside - pursued by a most troubling truth: sometimes to do the right thing, you have to join the wrong side...
Wow, he's done it again. What a belter of a book. Part relentless thriller, part time-machine. Chris Lloyd drops you in Paris during the occupation, with a grisly murder to solve, but you can trust nobody and nobody trusts you.
I have a theory that certain literary mash-ups of stories, or setting or genre can result in fantastic new creations that exude a new life of their own. Think if you combined "Tom Brown's schooldays" with wizards you get Harry Potter. If you meld a serial killer story with "The Old Man and the Sea" you get "Jaws". Lastly, if you cross the power politics of "The Godfather" with the medieval period of history and throw in a few mythical creatures you get "Game of Thrones" even some of the terminology and roles are similar e.g. "King of the Seven Kingdoms" and "Head of the Five Families" and "Hand of the King" is basically the same as "Consigliere."
Anyway, I digress back to Chris Lloyd. What the author has done is to mix the hard boiled LA 1920/30s detective Sam Spade genre with the setting of Paris under Nazi occupation during World War 2. This is a genius move as in addition to Eddie's sarcastic, wise cracking attitude dealing with an investigation into scar-faced villains and femme fatales of the LA detective type. Eddie our Anti-Hero is now introduced to at least two layers of added jeopardy. One from above where the various German occupying forces see him as a potential loose cannon and don't trust him. The other threat is from below where the everyday people suspect him of collaborating with the enemy. Throw in a threat to his sons life unless he plays along and the sense of stress is unrelenting from the first. You find yourself racing to the end of the chapter in order just to exhale.
I feel I must mention the character of our protagonist Eddie Giral. I described him in the review of first novel "The Unwanted Dead" as a tough, vulnerable thug of an honest cop. Perhaps honest is pushing it a bit. Forgive me for paraphrasing but I think the author described him as "a bad guy in the good times, but a good guy in the bad times." Tough and clever, he is like a more dirty, more realistic Jack Reacher. Love a bit of Eddie.
But its not all about surface matters. This is a multi- faceted tale. It involves the investigation, the occupation, two side quests in an attempt at redemption, the battle for Eddies mental well being and how to make choices when all your options are horrifically bad. Its not just an historical whodunnit, it has a solid depth that few others can match. It has a "hinterland" as Dennis Healy might say
Included in the book is an Author's note about the research carried out for the book that is as fascinating as it is heart breaking. This book is a timely reminder of the consequences of extremism.
When I review book, I have a habit of underlining tracts that stand out as either as mini insights into the story or of just lovely lyrical phrasing. With this book I was swamped for choice for both. He has a way of conveying complex thoughts, issues and situations in a few clear and aesthetically pleasing lines. Indeed at time of writing this (Nov 2022) I am beyond frustrated that I cannot show you how good he is via some selected quotes. However because the book isn't out until Feb 2023 sadly I am not allowed. As soon as the book is out check back there will be some rip-snorting quotes here!
I only have one criticism of the author. He needs to write faster! Can't wait for Eddie Giral 3!
"As thinly as possible, the way we'd all learned, to make it last as long as you could. The slice was uneven where my hand was shaking cutting it. The texture was so unlike the bread we used to get, more a collection of crumbs held together in hope."
"..a face hidden behind a massive moustache and a nose that pointed in several directions at once."
"Cocteau once said poverty was a luxury in Montparnesse. Cocteau was an optimist. The area had gone badly down hill since those heady days.."
"..one of the wardens guided me to a dingy room of institutional mould and left me to wait"
"my lip was bleeding, I must have fallen down some stairs. Or resisted arrest. I've written reports too. I know how it works."
Chris was born in an ambulance racing through a town he’s only returned to once, which probably explains a lot.Straight after graduating in Spanish and French, he hopped on a bus from Cardiff to Catalonia where he stayed for the next twenty-odd years, first in the small and beautiful city of Girona, then in the big and beautiful city of Barcelona. He’s also lived in Bilbao, pre-empting the Guggenheim by a good few years, and in Madrid, where his love of Barcelona football club deepened. During this time, he worked as a teacher, in educational publishing, as a travel writer and as a translator. He still spends part of his day translating lofty and noble academic and arts texts.
Besides this, he also lived in Grenoble for six months, where he studied the French Resistance movement, a far deeper and more complex subject than history often teaches us and one that has fascinated him for years.
He now lives in his native Wales, where he writes crime novels and translates stuff.
The result of his lifelong interest in World War 2 and resistance and collaboration in Occupied France, The Unwanted Dead (Orion) is Chris’s first novel set in Paris, featuring Detective Eddie Giral. The series will see Eddie negotiate his way through the Occupation, trying to find a path between resistance and collaboration, all the time becoming whoever he must be to survive the ordeal descended on his home.
He also writes the Elisenda Domenech series (Canelo) set in Girona, featuring a police officer in the devolved Catalan police force. The head of an experimental Serious Crime Unit, she fights the worst of human excesses in the most beautiful of settings.
When he’s not writing or trying to keep up with his reading pile, Chris loves travelling, languages, red wine, Wales and Barça at football, Wales at rugby, cryptic crosswords, art, rock music and losing himself in European cities.
He’s especially proud to be a member of the Welsh crime writing collective Crime Cymru, the Crime Writers’ Association and the Society of Authors.
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