Paul Colize

The early days of English rock, with their new sounds, buckets of drugs and anarchic lifestyle form the background to Paul Colize's Back Up, a Belgian thriller that bridges conspiracy theory and a classic mystery that you can eat like candy. In 1967, four members of the British rock band Pearl Harbor all die at the same time in different locations under mysterious circumstances. Forty years later a homeless man is hit by a car, leaving him in a near-comatose condition. Add a curious show more journalist who believes there is a connection between these events and a dedicated physiotherapist who begins the long process of discovering his patient's hidden secret and we are pulled along into a tale of international dirty politics that is gripping and well plotted. Alternate chapters are told in the voice of the patient, X Midi, whose story ties it all together...rock and roll and the fate of the free world! show less

Back Up, by Paul Colize is one of the most original books I've read in a long time. Half conspiracy novel and half cultural history of London and Europe in the early 60's. It's one of the few novels I've read that has the ability to evoke bittersweet feelings and abject terror simultaneously.

The book starts with the tragic death of the 5 members of Pearl Harbor, a budding Rock and Roll band, in 1965 and then shifts to a homeless man found comatose in Belgium. How are the two connected and show more what exactly happen at a fateful recording session that transpired shortly before the deaths of the young musicians? You'll enjoy learning the story. And the answers will make you think. show less

This crime thriller by Belgian writer Paul Colize about a British rock band was short-listed for a number of prizes when first released. Only now available in English, the book should find a natural home and receptive audience among rock fans everywhere.
It’s 1967. The rock band Pearl Harbor is taking a break after a hastily organized, late night Berlin recording session, and its four members have scattered. Within days, each of them is dead and unaccountably flush with cash. One is found show more at the bottom of a pool in a luxury hotel in Palma de Mallorca, one with a bullet in his head in a hotel room in Hamburg, one crushed under a train in a Berlin U-Bahn station, and one who was apparently hiding out in a London hotel and jumped from his fifth floor room.
Who could believe all these deaths were coincidental? The authorities, with their scattered jurisdictions and the differing modes of death believe it, especially when the bodies—and the victims’ histories—reveal alarmingly high levels of drug and alcohol abuse. The band members become no more than rock n roll detritus, washed up by the tide of 1960s counterculture. It’s a bang-up start to this well-constructed mystery.
Fast forward to 2010. In Brussels, a homeless man is hit by a car near the Gare du Midi train station. He’s badly injured, cannot speak, cannot be identified, and comes to be known as X Midi. You are privileged to read his thoughts, however, as he recuperates. He reconstructs his past and his fleeting but deadly association with Pearl Harbor in chapters that alternate with those narrated by his caretakers. They are trying with infinite patience to help him recover from locked-in syndrome, which leaves him almost totally incapable of communicating.
Drug and alcohol use is part of the immersive environment Colize creates and manages not to become tedious. Rumors of U.S. military involvement in the testing psychoactive drugs simmer. There’s lots of music-making too, which is filled with energy and considerable joy. Berlin’s rock scene takes place in bars and nightclubs, and the bartenders and denizens are portrayed convincingly.
Nevertheless, you may be grateful when X Midi’s narrative emerges from his substance-abusing days to confront the deeper and more sinister evil dogging him. Only gradually does he come to understand the true significance of Pear Harbor’s fateful and final recording session, in which he served as the substitute drummer. The back up. show less

Take one Belgian crime writer, add a 1960's English rock band, stir in a complex mystery, and you've got a most happy reader. Author Paul Colize is a bestselling crime novelist in his native Belgium, and now (lucky us) Back Up has been translated into English. This is a well written novel, with tightly woven plot lines which stretch from the 60's to today's world. The reader gets to follow along with the Irish journalist attempting to solve a decades long mystery that intertwines with a show more brand new one. Like me myself, you'll be thanking Belgium for this gifted writer. show less