After three years of silence, the author of Crimson Rivers returns with Lontano, a thriller tinged with African magic and family stories. An 800-page tome at the heart of darkness, published in early September by Albin Michel.
Lontano originates far, far from Brittany and Erwan. In Africa, in 1969, in the red mud of Zaire, in the bush, the Nail Man is the first investigation of Grégoire Morvan, a colossus, an inflexible father, France’s top cop, a concealer, a cleaner. A man without scruples, with an iron grip who will strictly raise his children, leaving them as three broken beings.
Years after the capture of the Nail Man, bodies riddled with metal shards, tied up like African fetishes, remind Grégoire Morvan of the dark hours of his history. To solve this case, he sends the top Crime cop, Erwan, his eldest son, on-site.
With Lontano, the king of French thrillers offers us an intense and high-flying novel. With nearly 800 pages, the plot of Lontano takes its time to unfold and sets the stage for an investigation that will concern and challenge the entire Morvan clan.
From the first pages, we can sense that Jean-Christophe Grangé has extensively researched the history of Africa, French Africa, the underground stories of these territories. We also detect a certain cynicism through the words and thoughts of Grégoire Morvan, who is present at the heart of all governments, right and left. It is fiction but deeply rooted in reality; it is both political and current. Indeed, Grégoire Morvan began his career under Giscard to end as an advisor to the Élysée under Hollande, a spook operating outside the law, not appearing on any organization chart, almost a ghost. Jean-Christophe Grangé skillfully mixes fiction and real elements to offer us a harsh, well-crafted, and incredibly dense novel.
Ultimately, two intrigues will occupy the reader: the crimes inspired by the Nail Man and that of the Morvan clan, a harsh family where everyone detests each other without admitting it, where each family gathering is a moment of collective suffering. This tense atmosphere is extremely well rendered and offers us characters on the edge, especially the hero. Erwan is the eldest of a mistreated sibling, an obstinate and solitary cop, far from charismatic group leaders. His team is hardly present around him, except perhaps Kripo and Audrey.
Violence is, of course, present in this crime novel, but more generally, the atmosphere is sticky, sinister, among the stoned traders, SM swinging circles, crazy artists, macabre stagings, and sordid crimes.
The suspense intensifies as Erwan follows the killer’s trail, without any downtime, alternating moments of pure investigation and more documented passages, mainly on Africa, its beliefs, its riches, its schemes, its corrupt governments, on European-African relations sometimes still tinged with colonialism.
In Lontano, yombé magic is everywhere, and family intrigues are almost inextricable.
Fans who have devoured—or will devour—Lontano, rest assured, a sequel is already planned for the first semester of 2016. We should thus find Erwan again, delving into his father’s past at the heart of Congo…
