Murder in Memoriam (Mask Noir)

Rating:
Summary: Interesting History, Bad Mystery
Review: Daeninckx is apparently a very prolific mystery writer in his native France, and this book won the "Grand Prix de littérature policière" in 1984. Unfortunately for the non-French reader, much of it depends on a knowledge of-or at least a strong interest in-domestic French politics and infighting following WWII. I had originally picked this up because I had liked another of his books in translation, A Very Profitable War, and this one revolves around a murder that takes place during pro-Algerian demonstrations in 1961 (which sounded intriguing). When the murdered man's son is himself murdered some 20 years later in Toulouse, a local police inspector starts trying to figure if there's a connection between the two killings. Mostly this is an excuse for Daeninckx to highlight some of the lowlights in French civil history, mainly bureaucratic zeal in assisting German occupiers with rounding up Jews, and later the massacre (and subsequent cover-up) of unarmed Algerian demonstrators on October 17, 1961 by French paramilitary police. There's actually quite a lot of interesting political history here, but there are no well-drawn characters, nor decent writing to carry it along. A noble effort at exhuming history that many French, one suspects, would rather leave forgotten, but not the most engaging story.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting History, Bad Mystery
Review: Daeninckx is apparently a very prolific mystery writer in his native France, and this book won the "Grand Prix de littérature policière" in 1984. Unfortunately for the non-French reader, much of it depends on a knowledge of-or at least a strong interest in-domestic French politics and infighting following WWII. I had originally picked this up because I had liked another of his books in translation, A Very Profitable War, and this one revolves around a murder that takes place during pro-Algerian demonstrations in 1961 (which sounded intriguing). When the murdered man's son is himself murdered some 20 years later in Toulouse, a local police inspector starts trying to figure if there's a connection between the two killings. Mostly this is an excuse for Daeninckx to highlight some of the lowlights in French civil history, mainly bureaucratic zeal in assisting German occupiers with rounding up Jews, and later the massacre (and subsequent cover-up) of unarmed Algerian demonstrators on October 17, 1961 by French paramilitary police. There's actually quite a lot of interesting political history here, but there are no well-drawn characters, nor decent writing to carry it along. A noble effort at exhuming history that many French, one suspects, would rather leave forgotten, but not the most engaging story.