Irrevocable is the first novel by Andreas Pflüger, a renowned German screenwriter, published in January 2018 by Fleuve Éditions. A debut thriller with a well-crafted plot and an atypical heroine!
Barcelona, five years earlier. Jenny Aaron, a member of a very special unit of the German police, suffers a crushing failure during an operation. In a matter of minutes, her life is turned upside down; she loses her sight, her place within the unit, and the love of Niko. After a slow and painful recovery, supported by Bushido, the philosophy of the samurai, Jenny has become a specialist in interrogations, excelling at discerning the unspoken, understanding the silences, breaths, and hesitations.
But a phone call will bring her back to her former team: a prisoner insists on speaking with her, and only her.
Here she is, back within this unit, with these men she knows so well, in this very particular atmosphere, to lead an investigation at the center of which she will be and will realize that her accident five years ago was only a prologue…
For this first thriller, Andreas Pflüger makes a strong impression by offering us an adrenaline-filled thriller with a blind heroine. With a relentless pace, Irrevocable will allow us to delve into the heart of an elite squad, to understand its members and codes. This team atmosphere is particularly well rendered by the author, thanks to strong and relatable characters.
The choice of a blind heroine is a major positive point, and we discover the sensory abilities developed by the visually impaired to compensate for their lost sense. Much like a female Daredevil, the famous Marvel hero, we follow Jenny Aaron, the samurai, in her quest against the Holm brothers (those responsible for her blindness in Barcelona). The narrative is punctuated with italicized sentences that are Jenny’s thoughts or deductions about the people she meets or the places she visits.
Well-written, Andreas Pflüger’s style can sometimes be surprising as it mixes different time periods, memories, and present moments without necessarily pausing or using time markers, which can be disorienting at first and might make the reader lose their way.
In the end, Irrevocable is a gripping thriller with a highly cinematic feel, extremely rhythmic, somewhat akin to a television series, and featuring a strong and determined heroine whom we’ll enjoy following. Remarkably effective.
