After her trilogy focused on Captain Sevran, of which the last volume was highly praised (The Little Refrain of Horror, Fleuve Éditions, 2022), Cécile Cabanac returns with The Chaos in Our Veins (Fleuve Éditions, April 2023), a dark thriller and a new investigative duo.
2019. While fishing in the Prigonrieux pond in Dordogne, a man discovers the body of a woman shot dead in an old building. For Captain Brisseau, a worn-out cop whose family life is a mess, it’s a suicide, and that’s just as well; the investigation will be quickly wrapped up. But things aren’t that simple, and soon, a second body is discovered. For this one, there is no doubt: it’s a murder—this one is submerged in a vat of acid… The second bad news for Brisseau is that the first body belongs to a former cop, Céline Arbin. A tenacious, stubborn woman with a keen sense of justice, obsessed with two unresolved cases.
Lacking courage, Captain Brisseau can rely on his young lieutenant, Marianne Decointet, to provide the necessary motivation and delve into this increasingly complicated case.
Unresolved Investigations and Multiple Leads
The Chaos in Our Veins is a powerful thriller with a particularly complex and skillful structure. Indeed, Cécile Cabanac offers a narrative unfolding across multiple timelines, starting with the discovery of Céline Arbin’s body. This cop, entirely devoted to her work, made plenty of enemies, not only among criminals but also among her colleagues who disliked her. She is primarily haunted by two unresolved investigations that lead her to investigate solo, outside of any legal framework: a series of unresolved rapes on a student campus in Bordeaux and the mysterious disappearance of a brilliant cardiologist, Hélène Gantz, the wife of a prominent lawyer famed for high-profile trials.
The story traces back to 1983 and returns to 2021, with the author taking us through Captain Arbin’s inquiries and the investigation by Brisseau and Decointet into her murder until the pieces of the puzzle come together.
Drawing on her past as a journalist—having produced several episodes of Faites entrer l’accusé—Cécile Cabanac also explores the dark personalities surrounding the world of justice (criminals, witnesses…) and highlights the burden of unresolved cases on police officers, forever marked by the stigma of powerlessness.
In this intricate blend of times and (false) leads, Cécile Cabanac might ultimately lose us, but she guides her readers exactly where she wants with great skill! We are amazed!
