Philippe Georget

This delightfully named book is set in and around Perpignan, France which is close to the Spanish border. It opens with several short chapters, each describing seemingly unconnected events: the discovery of a young woman’s body in a caravan park; the apparent disappearance of a local taxi driver and a passage which indicates a woman is being held somewhere against her will. In a roundabout (French?) kind of way these incidents are, eventually, dealt with by the Perpignan police as show more represented by Gilles Sebag and his colleagues.

The book takes an admittedly languorous journey to its end point but I was captivated from the outset and enjoyed the meaningless but somehow intriguing side journeys into local smuggling rackets and the like as much as the main story itself. Although seasoned crime fiction readers would expect the disparate elements that open the book to eventually coalesce, this doesn’t happen in the way you might think and there is always something to guess about.

But the story, good as it is, is in some ways the book’s weakest feature when compared to its setting and character development.

I defy any reader not to start wistfully googling images of southern France at some point in their reading. This sense of place is achieved in a variety of ways including the wonderful descriptions of the town and surrounds and the food (though the tomato salad-heavy diet doesn’t quite match the bounty of Inspector Montalbano’s Sicily) but it’s also in the attitude and behaviour of the characters. I know I have often railed against the constraining nature of genre labelling and other categorisations for writing but I have to admit that I do I often think of there being two kinds of crime fiction, or at least two kinds of police procedural: American and everything else. There are lots of complex reasons why there’s a distinction in my head but one of the strongest is the different attitude that tends to be displayed towards guns and SUMMERTIME, ALL THE CATS ARE BORED offers a great example of this. Whereas in most American procedurals cops usually have a backup gun strapped to their ankles as well as the weapon they’ve been officially issued, Gilles Sebag is so loathe to carry his weapon that he keeps it locked in a drawer and even when he’s on his way to confront a bad guy he muses that his colleagues will probably all have theirs so he needn’t bother. This is not the only particularly French – or European – attitude that sets the book apart from traditional American and English crime novels for me but it’s all I plan to share here.

Though we do learn something of his immediate boss and his partner of four years, Jacques Molina, it is Gilles Sebag who is the most well-defined character in the book and he does intrigue. He is atypical of crime fiction sleuths partly because he is married with very strong family values (so strong his career has been compromised) and more addicted to long distance running than the alcohol many of his fictional brethren are chained to. But perhaps more oddly he is not a workaholic. I found this depiction, which takes the entire book to really be teased out, to be rather interesting and in the end very credible as Gilles’ attitude is basically quite ‘normal’ in that he’d rather not have to work for a living and he’s not going to let his job rule his life but most of the time when he’s at work he’ll do his job as well as he can.

SUMMERTIME, ALL THE CATS ARE BORED is an enchanting novel that offers a little something for most kinds of readers (though I really don’t see it fitting comfortably into the noir label my copy’s front cover is plastered with). Georget, ably assisted by Steven Rendall’s invisible translation, has managed to stretch the constraints of the procedural to offer something genuinely original and thoroughly engaging. I hope like hell there’s a follow-up on its way. show less

It's not often you read a detective book where the detectives are spending all their time trying NOT to work, looking for relaxation, really not driven at all. Usually the detective is hard-bitten with a past that drives him or her to exhaustion before they catch the bad guy...
So Gilles Sebag, bored detective, family man, parent to teenagers who find him dull, is a surprising treat to read about. He's Catalan, in an unusual setting, Perpignan (on the French Mediterranean), and the show more environment around him is as much of a character as he and his colleagues are.
So so far this all sounds like a slow, lolling book, filled with middle aged angst, but it isn't. The mystery develops quickly and despite himself and his doubts of adequacy, Sebag is pulled into a first rate thriller.
I truly enjoyed this book, from the title to the last page. Every character is well-drawn, and though this is a translation, the slightly awkward phrasing makes the Catalan/French distance acute.
Maybe it's because I'm over 50 and feeling my limitations, too, but every once and awhile I get sick of detectives who are all-knowing and street wise and the top of their fields and incapable of self-knowledge. Muscle men and women. They tire me out. Whereas Gilles Sebag and I could go into a pub and discuss the finer things in life and I'd love every minute. show less

Crimes of Winter - Philippe Georget
(Third in the Inspector Gilles Sebag series).
Crimes of Winter is a very good police procedural. Strong on character, with an original take on a familiar topic - the 'crime of passion'. This intriguing mix of personal and crime story, both deeply intertwined, is seamlessly worked. More than just a thriller this is a solid commentary about a topical issue for society.
Lieutenant Gilles Sebag lives in Perpignan. It should be a quiet seaside town - nothing could show more be further from the truth. Sebag is preoccupied with his wife Claire's infidelity. With brutal, if loving, honesty Claire tells Gilles the truth. He is devastated, unable to concentrate and he is drinking too much. There is an outbreak of that most Gallic of crimes - the 'crime passionnel', (a common defence against a murder charge in the past), violent incidents and even a murder. Christine (47) is married, her lover Éric makes her feel twenty again, the touch of his hands exhilarates her, she is happy. The lovers meet every Tuesday and Thursday at the Hôtel du Gecko. After a lunchtime liaison, as Christine dresses there is a knock at the door. The gunman barely gives Christine time to register his intent before shooting her through the heart. The last case Sebag needs is a crime of passion, the parallels to his own life are just too close to home. The husband has to be the murderer but the evidence is inconsistent, something deeper is going on. A suicide and a hostage situation follow in quick succession. Christmas is coming but the bonhomie of the season is nowhere to be seen.
Georget is one of finest exponents of modern French crime fiction. A true heir of George Simenon. Georget's style of story telling has longevity, grounded in reality, distinguished by its depth and intelligence. No pyrotechnics just good story telling.
Crimes of Winter dwells in dark territory but is ultimately upbeat. Sebag's marriage problems are a means of deconstructing the psychology of the crimes in the novel. The story is a fascinating take infidelity. The 'crime passionnel', (committed in the heat of the moment), is no longer regarded as an easy excuse in law. Yet infidelity or an affair is often the motivation for violence. Crimes of Winter explores the sham of infidelity as an excuse for domestic violence, the hurt of the injured partner, the emotional and physical strain on the people involved and the way in which people come to terms with betrayal. Or beyond reason - the disastrous aftermath of violent crime. The men and women of the police force bring their own personal experience to their understanding of the crimes. There are moments of profound observation, a private detective comments;
"A jealous husband can be reassured only by proving to him that he was right to be jealous".
Sebag is forced to confront his own pain, he is a likeable character, a man who can be trusted, essentially honest. He is a good policeman with an instinct for investigation and an understanding of the criminal mind but in Crimes of Winter he is off his game. He is in pain suffering from an alcohol fuelled depression clouding his judgement. He needs to think, he needs time away from the family but Christmas is coming. The relationship between Sebag and his wife and the process of coming to terms with their problems is as fascinating as the crimes themselves. He has the respect of his colleagues and the faith of his bosses and even now Sebag's intuition is invaluable.
Georget does not have Simenon's love of brevity but Crimes of Winter is tight and to the point, it may be over 400 pages long but the intensity is maintained all the way through.
Europa Editions have consistently published some of the best fiction in translation over the last ten years, (Elena Ferrante, Parisa Reza, Boualem Sansal). More recently their 'World Noir' series has focused on crime writers from around the globe that deserve an English speaking audience, (Maurizio de Giovanni, Caryl Férey, Carlo Lucarelli, Massimo Carlotto). Georget fits right in and this is the third of his Gilles Sebag thrillers following on from; 'Summertime and All the Cats are Bored', 2013 and 'Autumn and All the Cats Return', 2014. The first dealing with the death of a Dutch tourist and the second a French-Algerian veteran - of course they are about so much more. For me Crimes of Winter is the best of Georget's novels to date and a thoroughly enjoyable read. show less

Although I don’t really think AUTUMN ALL THE CATS RETURN can comfortably wear the trendy (but misplaced) noir label adorning its cover, there is a noir-ish fatalism to its lead character. Gilles Sebag, a detective with the Perpignan police on Southern France, is jaded. This passage is from the beginning of the book

"The last few years, he’d found his work disagreeable. The routine, the violence, the lack of internal recognition, the citizens’ scorn. You had to put up with all that, and show more for what? When he’d enlisted in the police force, he’d imagined he’d be a kind of physician for a sick society. It took him a while to understand that he was no more than a minor nurse doomed to dress suppurating wounds with outdated ointments. Criminality would never stop, it couldn’t stop, it was part of human nature. The most you could hope to do was bring down the fever a little. But no one had yet invented a reliable thermometer."

And this one from near the end, after the case is wrapped up

"A heavy melancholy was numbing his body and his mind. For each investigation, how many lives were broken, how many bodies lay in the cemetery, and how many souls were locked up behind four damp walls in a prison? And how many wounded hears were there among the survivors?"

If those passages don’t resonate with you on some level then this book probably isn’t for you. But if they do…if they make you want to learn more about the man pondering those thoughts and the world in which he lives then I highly recommend AUTUMN ALL THE CATS RETURN.

It is the follow up to the delightful SUMMERTIME, ALL THE CATS ARE BORED and it shares something of the first book’s sensibilities. Its setting, a small-ish town in southern France, is vividly brought to life and is a far cry from the gritty urban streets beloved by so many crime writers. But this book is darker than its predecessor, perhaps because it doesn’t take place at the height of summer? If there is a winter book will it be even more grim?

The case at its centre manages to be fascinating despite the fact there isn’t a huge amount of suspense associated with it. An elderly man is killed in his apartment and the letters scrawled on one of his walls suggest to police that the murder might have something to do with the Algerian War of Independence in which, during the 1950’s and early 60’s, Algeria gained its independence from France after an often bloody conflict. Gilles Sebag and his colleagues must investigate within the community of ex-pat French Algerians, known as the Pieds-noirs, many of whom are still grieving the loss associated with being forced from the country of their birth. I’ll admit upfront my level of knowledge of this particular war and its aftermath prior to reading this book was hovering at zero but even so I felt the depictions were credible. Like displaced peoples the world over, some come to terms with their new circumstances while others allow their resentments to flourish and we meet a range of these characters as the story unfolds. Via some well-placed flashbacks we also gain a small insight into the events of the war and a particular group of underground guerrilla fighters.

The book is a long one at 430 pages but, rarely for me, I didn’t find myself wishing someone had taken to it with a red pen. I enjoyed the depictions of the sometimes dull but always necessary police work, not all of which pans out of course. These are interspersed with snippets from Sebag’s home life which is basically sound, despite the fact he believes his wife has recently had an affair and he wrestles internally over whether or not to have her confirm it. At the beginning of the novel a friend of his teenage daughter is killed in an accident and I thought the way in which she asks her father, ‘the hero’, to look into the case very touching. Matched by his desire to live up to his daughter’s expectations of him.

Although he is in many ways not a traditional crime fiction protagonist I find myself feeling quite affectionately towards Gilles Sebag and I have truly enjoyed immersing myself in this latest, languid adventure. If you like your crime fiction a little out of the ordinary I really do recommend this one and think you could easily pick it up without having read the first novel of the series (though I bet you’ll want to afterwards if you don’t do it beforehand). show less