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Insoupçonnable
Sam est le frère de Lise. Du moins c'est ce que tout le monde croit quand Lise se marie avec Henri. Mais c'est surtout Henri qui doit le croire, pour que Sam et Lise puissent réussir leur mauvais coup. Seulement Henri aussi a un frère, un vrai cette fois, et qui s'appelle Édouard. Or même vrai on peut être un faux frère.
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
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66 people want to read
About the author
Tanguy Viel
28 books40 followersTanguy Viel, né le 27 décembre 1973 à Brest, est un écrivain français.
Tanguy Viel est réputé pour une mise en place d’intrigues complexes, une réflexion sur quelques thèmes récurrents (les liens familiaux, les duperies, les inégalités de classes et les difficultés à prendre l’ascenseur social), et un travail formel. Il s’inscrit dans la tradition des éditions de Minuit3, c’est-à-dire selon un modèle de distanciation. Ses romans sont fondés sur beaucoup de romanesque et font même usage du suspense. Bien qu’il ne le revendique pas lui-même1, L'Absolue Perfection du crime, Insoupçonnable, Paris-Brest et Article 353 du Code pénal sont généralement considérés comme des romans policiers en raison d’éléments récurrents : des personnages de gangsters ou d’escrocs, des crimes soigneusement préparés, l’intervention de procès ou de grosses sommes d’argent.
Les stéréotypes sont cependant retravaillés parfois mis en évidence par une forme de réflexivité4. La Disparition de Jim Sullivan en est le meilleur exemple. Le lecteur est souvent invité à participer « le narrateur n'a pas d'avance sur lui du point de vue de l'intrigue »5. L'écriture est l'objet d'une enquête : c'est au lecteur de reconstruire le puzzle en désordre du protagoniste.
Tanguy Viel emprunte également au cinéma6, mais cela est surtout notable dans son style : les effets de montage, l'usage de l'ellipse, la mise en place de scènes fortes et la variation des points de vue.
Le style de Tanguy Viel se caractérise par sa précision et son économie7. Ses phrases sont jugées longues et saccadées au service d’un style très dynamique8.
Tanguy Viel est réputé pour une mise en place d’intrigues complexes, une réflexion sur quelques thèmes récurrents (les liens familiaux, les duperies, les inégalités de classes et les difficultés à prendre l’ascenseur social), et un travail formel. Il s’inscrit dans la tradition des éditions de Minuit3, c’est-à-dire selon un modèle de distanciation. Ses romans sont fondés sur beaucoup de romanesque et font même usage du suspense. Bien qu’il ne le revendique pas lui-même1, L'Absolue Perfection du crime, Insoupçonnable, Paris-Brest et Article 353 du Code pénal sont généralement considérés comme des romans policiers en raison d’éléments récurrents : des personnages de gangsters ou d’escrocs, des crimes soigneusement préparés, l’intervention de procès ou de grosses sommes d’argent.
Les stéréotypes sont cependant retravaillés parfois mis en évidence par une forme de réflexivité4. La Disparition de Jim Sullivan en est le meilleur exemple. Le lecteur est souvent invité à participer « le narrateur n'a pas d'avance sur lui du point de vue de l'intrigue »5. L'écriture est l'objet d'une enquête : c'est au lecteur de reconstruire le puzzle en désordre du protagoniste.
Tanguy Viel emprunte également au cinéma6, mais cela est surtout notable dans son style : les effets de montage, l'usage de l'ellipse, la mise en place de scènes fortes et la variation des points de vue.
Le style de Tanguy Viel se caractérise par sa précision et son économie7. Ses phrases sont jugées longues et saccadées au service d’un style très dynamique8.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
October 7, 2021
[Edited, pictures added 10/7/2021]
A French murder mystery.
A young French couple conspires to kidnap a wealthy older gentleman by arranging a sham marriage of him to the woman. Things go awry and now we are dealing with murder and blackmail.
But the real mystery becomes, exactly who is conning who?
This is a quick read -- only 170 pages and it is a paperback-sized hardcover. It’s translated from the French, but there is little local color --- it’s focused on the country club set and it could just as well take place in L.A. It’s a good story with easy-flowing language.
[image error]
The author, b. 1973 writes mysteries, essays and, what appears to be experimental novels. But his writing doesn’t seem to have caught on, at least in English. Of his 15-or-so works only a few have been translated into English and those only have a few ratings on GR.
Photo from NDTV.com
The author from Wikipedia
A French murder mystery.
A young French couple conspires to kidnap a wealthy older gentleman by arranging a sham marriage of him to the woman. Things go awry and now we are dealing with murder and blackmail.
But the real mystery becomes, exactly who is conning who?
This is a quick read -- only 170 pages and it is a paperback-sized hardcover. It’s translated from the French, but there is little local color --- it’s focused on the country club set and it could just as well take place in L.A. It’s a good story with easy-flowing language.
[image error]
The author, b. 1973 writes mysteries, essays and, what appears to be experimental novels. But his writing doesn’t seem to have caught on, at least in English. Of his 15-or-so works only a few have been translated into English and those only have a few ratings on GR.
Photo from NDTV.com
The author from Wikipedia
July 20, 2019
One of the review quotes on the cover of this short book says it reads like a Raymond Chandler novel, a comment of maximal piffledom; I guess the unnamed reviewer has the excuse that s/he was writing for a French literary magazine, rather than an Anglophone one, but even making that allowance may be overcharitable. There isn't a private eye in sight; there's no mystery to be solved; there isn't a nest of plot strands that prove eventually to be interrelated; and so on and so on and so on. No one even gets beaten up, by the cops or otherwise.
Perhaps the reviewer was thinking of Jim Thompson and merely, in a moment of absentmindedness, wrote down the name of the wrong American hardboiled writer? Because that's a comparison that could be justified -- certainly in terms of the plot and, at a bit of a stretch, in terms of the writing style.
Lovers Sam and Lise are a pair of grifters. Lise is a "hostess" at a dubious niterie -- the most popular of the girls there not just because she's the prettiest but because she's the one who's renowned for not actually putting out for the customers: she'll be their companion for the evening but draws the line there.
Among her regulars is wealthy, widowed auctioneer Henri. Between them Lise and Sam hatch the idea that she should coax Henri -- who in the event requires not much coaxing -- into marrying her so that later, after he's had a little accident, she can inherit his fortune. Until then Sam will pose as her loving brother so that no one will think to question the amount of time the pair spend together: after all, in the guise of her brother he's surely beyond any suspicion that he could be her lover.
But then there's a modification of the plan. Lise, who's by far the dominant member of the partnership with Sam, stages her own kidnapping. Sam sets up the drop, requiring Henri to deliver a packet containing a million euros to a remote site. Surely there's nothing could go wrong . . .
The Thompsonesque nature of the tale is evident from the above summary. What are far less obvious are the parallels in terms of the telling. Viel gives us his tale entirely from within the mind of the none-too-bright grifter Sam. I'm vaguely tempted to call it a stream-of-consciousness narrative but it isn't, not really. Instead it's a very carefully controlled impressionistic use of language, using words like daubs of paint to create a vibrant picture even if not every word/daub might stand up to individual scrutiny. Thompson's prose sometimes has a similar impressionistic feel to it as we explore the thoughts of his often loathsome narrators. Viel and Thompson otherwise have very different voices, but in this respect they're not so very dissimilar.
A major difference is that Sam, while pretty much a bottom-feeder, is nowhere near as loathsome as his Thompsonesque equivalent might be. We can actually sympathize with him, especially toward the later stages of the tale.
It took me a dozen or more pages to acclimatize myself to Viel's writing style (as luminously rendered into English by Linda Coverdale), but I felt the investment of effort was well worth it as I raced through the rest. The beautifully produced New Press edition I devoured had a foreword by Jonathan Lethem that I remember enjoying a lot as I read it even though, by the time I got to the end of the novel, I'd forgotten most of what Lethem had said: my bad.
This is a very short book -- like many of Thompson's, another parallel! -- yet by the time of its ambiguous ending it has packed as much of a punch as many a far longer novel. Definitely recommended.
======
Incidentally, my spellcheck insists that by "hardboiled" I mean "charbroiled." I kinda like it . . .
Perhaps the reviewer was thinking of Jim Thompson and merely, in a moment of absentmindedness, wrote down the name of the wrong American hardboiled writer? Because that's a comparison that could be justified -- certainly in terms of the plot and, at a bit of a stretch, in terms of the writing style.
Lovers Sam and Lise are a pair of grifters. Lise is a "hostess" at a dubious niterie -- the most popular of the girls there not just because she's the prettiest but because she's the one who's renowned for not actually putting out for the customers: she'll be their companion for the evening but draws the line there.
Among her regulars is wealthy, widowed auctioneer Henri. Between them Lise and Sam hatch the idea that she should coax Henri -- who in the event requires not much coaxing -- into marrying her so that later, after he's had a little accident, she can inherit his fortune. Until then Sam will pose as her loving brother so that no one will think to question the amount of time the pair spend together: after all, in the guise of her brother he's surely beyond any suspicion that he could be her lover.
But then there's a modification of the plan. Lise, who's by far the dominant member of the partnership with Sam, stages her own kidnapping. Sam sets up the drop, requiring Henri to deliver a packet containing a million euros to a remote site. Surely there's nothing could go wrong . . .
The Thompsonesque nature of the tale is evident from the above summary. What are far less obvious are the parallels in terms of the telling. Viel gives us his tale entirely from within the mind of the none-too-bright grifter Sam. I'm vaguely tempted to call it a stream-of-consciousness narrative but it isn't, not really. Instead it's a very carefully controlled impressionistic use of language, using words like daubs of paint to create a vibrant picture even if not every word/daub might stand up to individual scrutiny. Thompson's prose sometimes has a similar impressionistic feel to it as we explore the thoughts of his often loathsome narrators. Viel and Thompson otherwise have very different voices, but in this respect they're not so very dissimilar.
A major difference is that Sam, while pretty much a bottom-feeder, is nowhere near as loathsome as his Thompsonesque equivalent might be. We can actually sympathize with him, especially toward the later stages of the tale.
It took me a dozen or more pages to acclimatize myself to Viel's writing style (as luminously rendered into English by Linda Coverdale), but I felt the investment of effort was well worth it as I raced through the rest. The beautifully produced New Press edition I devoured had a foreword by Jonathan Lethem that I remember enjoying a lot as I read it even though, by the time I got to the end of the novel, I'd forgotten most of what Lethem had said: my bad.
This is a very short book -- like many of Thompson's, another parallel! -- yet by the time of its ambiguous ending it has packed as much of a punch as many a far longer novel. Definitely recommended.
======
Incidentally, my spellcheck insists that by "hardboiled" I mean "charbroiled." I kinda like it . . .
August 4, 2022
I did not like this novel as much as Viel's Article 353, which I read immediately before this. This was a good book for me to read in my rusty French, due to its relatively simple vocabulary and repetition. And, like Article 353, it has little dialogue, some of which is narrated, which I like. But its plot is out of James Cain, and its narrative voice is not as special as that in Viel’s more recent novel. The writing is equally good. A 3.5.
March 12, 2016
In the opening chapter of this Hitchcockian tale, Sam describes his sister Lise’s wedding to ostentatiously wealthy older man Henri, a successful auctioneer in business with his brother Edouard, unaccountably absent from the proceedings. As soon becomes clear, Sam’s resentment and uneasiness have been stirred up because he and Lise are in fact lovers, with a plan to extort money from Henri to finance a new life together in America. It is clear from the outset that this scheme will not work out as intended, but Tanguy Viel transforms what could have been a hackneyed plot by means of some novel twists.
Having also read “L’Absolue perfection du crime” and “Paris-Brest” by the same author, I soon began to note some common factors despite clearly different plots: they are all short psychological dramas with a male narrator, all involve a crime, and evoke the kind of sea and coastline found in Brittany from where Tanguy Viel originates. All have a strongly visual, cinematic quality. In the last chapter, Sam describes his feeling of being at the cinema with back projection behind a stationary car, even symbolically of his sense of driving a false car round false bends in a false world. In fact, “Insoupçonnable” has been made into a film in France.
The most distinctive factor in Tanguy Viel’s novels is the style, which is a kind of stream of consciousness with thoughts, descriptions, memories, ideas, running into each other in a way that requires total, page-turning concentration, and which only makes sense if you literally “go with the flow”. I understand the reviewer who finds the tendency to repeat phrases a little contrived or pretentious, but I like the rhythmic, at time hypnotic, frequently poetic nature of the style. These comments apply to the original French since I fear it might suffer in translation.
Two aspects prevent me from finding this a “perfect” novel. One is the fact that since the characters are somewhat two-dimensional, we do not really care about them or feel moved on their account: although the author manages to arouse in me a sympathy for Sam despite his actions, we are never told anything about his or Lise’s background, nor what brought them together. It may of course be Tanguy Viel's intention to make everyone pawns or inscrutable manipulators in a theatrical game which the reader enjoys without any emotional involvement. Also, to the extent that Sam appears to be a semi-educated layabout on the fringe of the criminal world, it seems odd that he can compare Henri with the literary character Charles Bovary, and that he generally speaks in such a lyrical voice, which is of course the author’s, the product of much labour made to look deceptively effortless.
Having also read “L’Absolue perfection du crime” and “Paris-Brest” by the same author, I soon began to note some common factors despite clearly different plots: they are all short psychological dramas with a male narrator, all involve a crime, and evoke the kind of sea and coastline found in Brittany from where Tanguy Viel originates. All have a strongly visual, cinematic quality. In the last chapter, Sam describes his feeling of being at the cinema with back projection behind a stationary car, even symbolically of his sense of driving a false car round false bends in a false world. In fact, “Insoupçonnable” has been made into a film in France.
The most distinctive factor in Tanguy Viel’s novels is the style, which is a kind of stream of consciousness with thoughts, descriptions, memories, ideas, running into each other in a way that requires total, page-turning concentration, and which only makes sense if you literally “go with the flow”. I understand the reviewer who finds the tendency to repeat phrases a little contrived or pretentious, but I like the rhythmic, at time hypnotic, frequently poetic nature of the style. These comments apply to the original French since I fear it might suffer in translation.
Two aspects prevent me from finding this a “perfect” novel. One is the fact that since the characters are somewhat two-dimensional, we do not really care about them or feel moved on their account: although the author manages to arouse in me a sympathy for Sam despite his actions, we are never told anything about his or Lise’s background, nor what brought them together. It may of course be Tanguy Viel's intention to make everyone pawns or inscrutable manipulators in a theatrical game which the reader enjoys without any emotional involvement. Also, to the extent that Sam appears to be a semi-educated layabout on the fringe of the criminal world, it seems odd that he can compare Henri with the literary character Charles Bovary, and that he generally speaks in such a lyrical voice, which is of course the author’s, the product of much labour made to look deceptively effortless.
May 23, 2014
A noir novella. Pitch perfect plot that must, since we are talking noir, go awry. Yet, in this work it is the language, yes, the lyric prose that holds its ground, upending plot.
We all get nothing good can come of a widower of fifty marrying a girl half his age. Consider: Donald Sterling. So what comes to pass in this novella isn't unexpected. What is different is the language and I keep coming back to the language which for me that was enough reason to mark Beyond Suspicion a three star.
I have you ponder a passage:
When you look at the sea on the day of a spring tide, you wait for the next tide, you wait for the next wave, for it to be higher, to make you forget the one before; you wait and look and this goes on and on because the idea never stops, of watching one melt away and another well up. That's how it is; you'd stay for hours until the wind dies down or the swell subsides with the outgoing tide.
-----
Gabriel Le Bomin has made the film. A sidewinding tale of the big scam, the double-crosses and deception, the two-timing, the turnabouts and turnarounds and flip-flopping - the usual assorted malarkey which makes reading noir such fun.
We all get nothing good can come of a widower of fifty marrying a girl half his age. Consider: Donald Sterling. So what comes to pass in this novella isn't unexpected. What is different is the language and I keep coming back to the language which for me that was enough reason to mark Beyond Suspicion a three star.
I have you ponder a passage:
When you look at the sea on the day of a spring tide, you wait for the next tide, you wait for the next wave, for it to be higher, to make you forget the one before; you wait and look and this goes on and on because the idea never stops, of watching one melt away and another well up. That's how it is; you'd stay for hours until the wind dies down or the swell subsides with the outgoing tide.
-----
Gabriel Le Bomin has made the film. A sidewinding tale of the big scam, the double-crosses and deception, the two-timing, the turnabouts and turnarounds and flip-flopping - the usual assorted malarkey which makes reading noir such fun.
December 24, 2023
3,5 Une lecture au rythme haletant mais qui ne fera pas partie des lectures marquantes de cette année : rien de plus qu un autre roman sur le crime passionel.
La plume de Tanguy Viel était par contre fluide et j’ai pris du plaisir à le lire: je ne me suis pas ennuyée un seul instant.
La plume de Tanguy Viel était par contre fluide et j’ai pris du plaisir à le lire: je ne me suis pas ennuyée un seul instant.
December 5, 2021
Un matrimonio, due amanti, il mare, una scrittura incalzante, che ricalca e segue i personaggi, le loro trame diaboliche, e nasconde ciò che è, per l'appunto, insospettabile.
Un noir che si legge d'un fiato, di atmosfere quasi da Hitchcock, imperdibile per chi ama questo genere.
Una sola, minuscola, pecca: ho dovuto rileggere il finale tre volte, è un filo criptico, se è chiaro quello che succede, alla fine, non è chiarissimo il modo in cui viene espresso. Almeno, per me!
Questo noir ha dato il via a una serie di letture di questo genere, con incursioni nei gialli e nel gotico...mi stanno appassionando sempre di più!
Un noir che si legge d'un fiato, di atmosfere quasi da Hitchcock, imperdibile per chi ama questo genere.
Una sola, minuscola, pecca: ho dovuto rileggere il finale tre volte, è un filo criptico, se è chiaro quello che succede, alla fine, non è chiarissimo il modo in cui viene espresso. Almeno, per me!
Questo noir ha dato il via a una serie di letture di questo genere, con incursioni nei gialli e nel gotico...mi stanno appassionando sempre di più!
May 8, 2025
Ça n’a vraiment rien d’original mais on a envie de savoir où ça va. Avec l’impression que l’histoire se déroule il y a longtemps, grosse surprise quand le narrateur se met subitement à parler d’euros.
Pas fan du style, encore moins de la tournure de phrase qu’il affectionne bizarre : la/le « toujours même » serveur, voiture, panama etc.
Pas fan du style, encore moins de la tournure de phrase qu’il affectionne bizarre : la/le « toujours même » serveur, voiture, panama etc.
September 28, 2018
reminded me of the random movie white mischief for some reason...cool interior world, but writing style (which is meant to represent the narrator's winding thoughts) made it sort of hard to not skip to the end of sentences sometimes.
November 20, 2019
A bit thin. Felt like a very early Hitchcock. The author neglected to cast the characters himself.
November 7, 2024
3.5
pas mal pas mal en vrai de vrai
pas mal pas mal en vrai de vrai
August 6, 2024
Tanguy Viel, Beyond Suspicion, 2006.
I read Viel’s Article 353 a few years ago and I really loved it, so I gave this one a try. I had to purchase it used because I do not think the English version is still in print. I liked this book too, though I liked Article 353 better.
In this book, a plan is cooked up by a couple, Sam and Lise, to get a wealthy auctioneer, Henri, to fall in love with and marry Lise. Once Lise and Henri are married, the plan is that Sam will work behind the scenes to stage a kidnapping of Lise, get Henri to pay a ransom, and then he and Lise will run off together with the ransom money. Easy peasy.
Seem half-baked? Well, that’s because it is. There are 1000 things that could go wrong with this flimsy plan, including the ridiculous request for one million Euros in a suitcase delivered in 24 hours to a small chapel near a beach. Let’s just say it doesn’t go off as planned, duh, and that’s where Edouard, Henri’s brother, will step in.
I think if there is a theme in this short novel, the overarching theme is price. What price would a rich man pay to get his wife returned to him? What price would a poor man pay not to go to jail? What price would a woman pay not to see her lover go to jail? What price does a brother expect for a wrong against him from years past? Is any amount of money worth losing your greatest love?
It’s beautifully written in Viel’s style and is an easy page-turner. But the end is a bit flat.
I read Viel’s Article 353 a few years ago and I really loved it, so I gave this one a try. I had to purchase it used because I do not think the English version is still in print. I liked this book too, though I liked Article 353 better.
In this book, a plan is cooked up by a couple, Sam and Lise, to get a wealthy auctioneer, Henri, to fall in love with and marry Lise. Once Lise and Henri are married, the plan is that Sam will work behind the scenes to stage a kidnapping of Lise, get Henri to pay a ransom, and then he and Lise will run off together with the ransom money. Easy peasy.
Seem half-baked? Well, that’s because it is. There are 1000 things that could go wrong with this flimsy plan, including the ridiculous request for one million Euros in a suitcase delivered in 24 hours to a small chapel near a beach. Let’s just say it doesn’t go off as planned, duh, and that’s where Edouard, Henri’s brother, will step in.
I think if there is a theme in this short novel, the overarching theme is price. What price would a rich man pay to get his wife returned to him? What price would a poor man pay not to go to jail? What price would a woman pay not to see her lover go to jail? What price does a brother expect for a wrong against him from years past? Is any amount of money worth losing your greatest love?
It’s beautifully written in Viel’s style and is an easy page-turner. But the end is a bit flat.
December 15, 2012
Sam and Lise live out their miserable lives on the French Atlantic coast. He spends the day with mindless TV shows, she works nights as a nightclub hostess. The older and wealthy widower Henri wants to marry her, to which she agrees, and this should end their money troubles. Instead of a marriage Sam and Lise stages together their own kidnapping to fool him and releasing money without having further obligations. Henri goes on a ransom demand, but at the money transfer something goes wrong.
A stream-of-consciousness gushing out where the words run wild, and feelings interfere with experience. Still everything flows smoothly into one another.
In a rare vitality Tanguy Viel produces many exceptional pictures, and with the increasing reading speed it becomes very cinematographic. Some of the characters are leaving alot unsaid, but it creates additional room for interpretation. A sparingly orchestrated novel, economical in style, short, quick and a bit on the odd side.
A stream-of-consciousness gushing out where the words run wild, and feelings interfere with experience. Still everything flows smoothly into one another.
In a rare vitality Tanguy Viel produces many exceptional pictures, and with the increasing reading speed it becomes very cinematographic. Some of the characters are leaving alot unsaid, but it creates additional room for interpretation. A sparingly orchestrated novel, economical in style, short, quick and a bit on the odd side.
January 31, 2016
A successful, if perhaps pointless, attempt at transposing a standard thriller plot into the register of literary fiction. Sam and Lise are eking out a meager living in a French provincial town. When a wealthy auctioneer falls in love with Lise, she pounces on the opportunity, and convinces her weak lover to masquerade as her brother and cotton up to her husband. The plan is to kidnap Henri and vanish to America with the ransom. Of course, nothing goes as planned. Henri ends up dead, and his brother Edouard blackmails Sam into surrendering Lise to himself. The story is told from Sam's perspective and Viel does a fine job of capturing the voice of a rather dim no-gooder who intuits pretty much from the start that he is out of his depth trying to con a pair of solid bourgeois brothers. Viel's lush prose is very evocative and I really enjoyed the whole thing, without quite being able to shake the notion that ultimately, the exercise is a bit futile.
January 8, 2010
I found this novel on the "new books" shelf at the library and it sounded like the usual contemporary crime novel, although translated from its original French. I have to say that it is not your typical noir. The plot was familiar and somewhat predictable for any mystery fan, but the prose was beautiful. I've never read a crime story that was written in such an elegant way. It is a small novel which I easily read in one sitting and would recommend to anyone for a quick, enjoyable read. I think I may look for the original French version in case anything was lost in translation.
January 28, 2013
I don't know a lot about noir fiction or film, but this strikes me as a solid exemplar of that style. The length of the sentences was distracting, but it also lends a breathless inevitability to the plot. Not a terribly remarkable book, in my view, but atmospheric.
May 26, 2009
This was ok, but too stream-of-consciousness for me.
June 8, 2009
It was just alright.
November 12, 2009
I thought the story was great and I also believe that the author could have told the story with a bit more grace and integrity.
July 29, 2010
This book is short; story has an unique twist; con-artists that are out for the money and something happens.....enjoyed it.
March 22, 2012
Writing style very surprising, very dynamic and with a lot of rhythm which seems to correspond to the narrator's emotional rhythm.
A very good discovery.
A very good discovery.
May 3, 2012
Very French.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews