The bad luck of Cédric Mangata, a detective in the Crime Squad of Toulouse, clings to the reader in this biting yet very dark novel by Jan Thirion. A bloody farce from which the hero would gladly have abstained, it delights the reader and describes a series of catastrophic events. Will Cédric Mangata pull through?! Nice Premium has delved with delight into On the Side of the Slaughterhouses, a tragicomic story.
It all begins with Pol R and his frozen sculptures; at eight years old, it was only insects and small animals, but as time went on, he felt like using pieces of humans and then whole bodies. Today, “he targets isolated individuals, kills them, and locks them in their freezers. It’s all very simple. No staging, no decor, no title, no signature. It’s raw, free, and anonymous art.” p. 11
But Pol R doesn’t limit himself to isolated apartments in Toulouse. He shows himself in broad daylight, at the Abattoirs Museum, modern art, A Frozen World, “what Pol R freezes evokes fear, and it is pleasing. It is better that people take the real for the fake.” p.11
Cédric Mangata investigates these frozen corpses, and his intuition leads him to question Pol R. However, Pol R has another secret: he is an extraordinary hypnotist, and with a perfectly executed back somersault, he sends Cédric Mangata crashing his head against a radiator in the interrogation room.
Eight days off work. The beginning of very big troubles.
Cédric finds himself bedridden, with a headache and lethargy, forgetting the last twenty-four hours. He thinks about Milly, the teenage daughter of his partner Delphine, about her, her too-short t-shirt, and her slender, tanned legs. He thinks of Milly, and in less time than it takes to say it, Milly falls from the top of the stairs before his eyes. Stunned.
This is where Cédric’s troubles will begin, an accidental death, and a succession of incredible calamities. Cédric will chain them, the bodies will start to pile up. With each step he takes to get out of his mess, another body will make him stumble. Jan Thirion describes this massacre game with surgical precision, his style is sharp, consisting of short sentences with striking efficiency. The narrative describes the events while also bringing us Cédric’s thoughts. It’s incisive, impactful, funny while being absolutely tragic. In the background of this incredible streak of bad luck, Cédric still seeks to catch Pol R and conducts an extraordinary investigation in the Toulouse night to stop the serial killer and save his skin.
The hallucinating waltz of calamities from which Cédric will fall victim pushes the reader to continue reading feverishly, with only one question in mind:
“How is all this going to end?!!”
On the Side of the Slaughterhouses is a very dark and totally exhilarating novel whose style doesn’t get bogged down with embellishments; it’s precise. In one night, the whole life of Cédric will be turned upside down, all due to a spider. The story of a butterfly effect turning into a nightmare will leave the reader wide-eyed, caught between a burst of laughter and a latent anxiety.
