Purée, quelle claque !!
I have recently mentioned that I like how these days some authors of thrillers, especially French, use this genre to address some major issues. I have read some books along these lines on immigration, for instance, but this one tops them all.
The main topic is mistakes in the judicial system, and all that goes along with it: violence by corrupt policemen, violence in prisons. And of course, how innocent people end up spending a few decades of their lives in jail, where they sometimes change because of that environment.
This is a long book, 768 pages. I actually listened to it (over 19 hours), and I have never cried so much all along a book of that length. It's also probably the thriller that made me pray the most, as all along, I kept thinking of the Jorge and Léonard of this world.
One day, Mona finds a little boy on the road, who seems to have suffered of ill treatment. She adopts him and surrounds him with love. He is all authenticity and fairness. But he has some mental issues due to what he has been through, so of course he is victim of harassment at school. One day, he makes a mistake, and ends up in jail. That same day, Mona’s real son Jorge comes out of prison, for a crime he said he never committed.
The book follows their lives, with their nightmares and their dreams, as they navigate the system.
We follow also other important characters, good ones and very had ones.
The writing is fabulous, with amazing back and forth between characters to create crazy suspense, and also with recurrent sentences (especially about Léonard’s past, and about his dreams).
All the pages on Glen Affric, Scotland, are fabulous and really make me want to visit.
I had identified some culprits quite early on, but you never know until the last chapter how things are going to end for the two brothers.
Sometimes when you read a nonfiction, you say it reads like fiction. I would say this thriller reads like nonfiction, in the sense that it’s so well done that all along I felt Jorge and Léonard do exist, and that I know them. And I’ll probably never be able to forget them!
I often have a problem to say which book was my favorite in a specific year. This one is the 133rd I have read in 2024, and this time I have no hesitation to say it is my BEST of the year.
The good news is that it’s now available in English, under the same title.
October 29, 2024 by HarperVia - ISBN 9780063393929