Grilled Chickens Take Roost
Review of the MacLehose Press paperback (2017) translated by Sam Gordon from the French language original "Poulets grillés" (Grilled Chickens*) (2015)

[3.5 rounded up]
Parisian police Commissaire Anne Capestan has been on temporary suspension for her latest shooting incident, the last of many. She returns to the office to hear her fate, which is to be put in charge of a newly formed squad to work on cold cases. The job sounds ideal, until she discovers that the squad will consist of 40 or so misfits which no one else wants to work with.

Only a few members of the squad actually report for duty on the first days at their new brigade headquarters. Capestan still endeavours to make the most of a bad situation and the several members of the squad sort through the boxes of cold case files looking for potential solvable cases. Two murders come to their attention and they proceed to chase down what few clues that exist. The text meanwhile has flashback interjections of a boating accident from decades past and a concurrent plot of a young man planning to marry his girlfriend. At first these seem to have no relation to the investigations but by the end all of the plot strands come together.

The Awkward Squad was a quick and enjoyable read which played up the comic elements of the several characters but which still made for an interesting police procedural. There was no apparent acknowledgement of its inspirations, but readers will likely notice some similarities with Mick Herron's Slough House/Slow Horses and Jussi Adler-Olsen's Department Q.

See French language cover at https://collectifpolar.files.wordpress.com/2016/04/97822263147100-2539876.jpg?w=...
Cover image of one of the original French language editions showing a cartoon interpretation of several of the main characters. Image sourced from Collectif polar : chronique de nuit.

The Awkward Squad is the first of three books in the Anne Capestan series and the first of two to be translated into English. The second book is Stick Together (2018) translated from the French language original Rester groupés (2016). The third book Art et décès (2019) is currently only available in the original French language.

Trivia and Links
* Although the French title literally translates as "Grilled Chickens", it basically means "Disgraced Cops". The Parisian slang for the police is "poulet" (French: chicken) due to the central police station on Île de la Cité being built on the site of a former chicken market. "Grillés" (French: grilled) is slang for disgraced. My thanks to Charly M. on Twitter for pointing me to this background history at https://twitter.com/metralch/status/1557869726021423104.

See poster at https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZjQ1MDE4MmMtMDVhNS00Yjk4LWFiOTUtYmFmYzMz...
Movie poster for the French language TV film adaptation. Image sourced from IMDb.

The Awkward Squad was adapted for a 2022 French language TV movie under its original title of Poulets grillés (Marketed in English as The Undercops). You can watch two French language TV trailers for it (turn on subtitles and then turn on annotations and select an auto-translate language of your choice) here and here. The trailers leave the impression that the adaptation may not be completely faithful to the book. ( )

DNF ( )

I can't remember where I heard about this book (best bet is here on BL) but it was described as a new mystery series similar to the old tv show Leverage*. The premise of the show was a group of misfits coming together to right the wrongs big business perpetrated against the people. The Awkward Squad's misfits are police officers unfit for regular duty but can't be fired, banded together and stuffed away in a remote location with the ostensible task of investigating cold cases. I loved Leverage, so bought this directly after it came out.

It's not quite Leverage - the misfits here aren't conmen, toughs or savants; these misfits are all broken by their jobs in one way or another, but it's close enough. For a first novel, I thought the story was excellent and well plotted too, although with definite room for improvement. It was written well enough that I only had vague suspicions about the solution, but not done so well that the author was able to lead me down the blind alley she'd constructed. The characters were the kind you cheer on, even if some of them aren't always likeable.

I didn't know when I bought the book that it was originally published in France a few years ago, under the name Poulets grillés. This leaves me with a lingering suspicion that it might have been an even better book in the original French. Not that the translation is bad - as far as I can tell it's flawless - but some of the marketing I've seen raves about the book humor. I can see how it's meant to be amusing, and one scene was definitely shooting for hilarity, but either something was lost in translation or it's a cultural difference of what defines funny.

Either way, I didn't like it less because I suspect I'm missing something, I just wonder if, had those 2.5 years of French lessons stuck at all, and I were able to read it in the original, I'd have liked it even more. Ce n'est pas grave, if Hēnaff writes another one, I'll happily be on board for reading it (in translation).

* - Has also been compared to Jussi Adler-Olsen’s tales about Copenhagen’s equally marginal Department Q. I cannot comment on how accurate this is, as I've not read Adler-Olsen. Yet? ( )

*Thank you to Edelweiss , The Publisher and The Author for allowing me to read this book in return for a fair and hones review*
So going into this book, I didn't really know how I was going to feel. Although I liked the synopsis, I was worried it would be more comedy hi-jinks, with a smidge of mystery. I was pleasantly surprised that this was not the case. I was even more surprised that I did not guess the ending, weird right? It has been such a long time where I haven't correctly guessed the ending of a book that it made me excited to see what was going on. I ended up reading this book in about a day.

First off I loved Capestan, despite the fact that she was basically in charge of unwanted cops, she didn't let that stop her from actually doing her job and trying. She was not some defeated has-been captain, she took what she got and ran with it, and it worked! Ultimately the squads job is to take cold unsolved cases and solve them, however no one actually expects the squad to solve these cases. This lack of faith doesn't actually stop the m from trying to solve these cases.

Secondly, there was not a single person on the squad that I hated. While some may be slightly annoying, there wasn't one I didn't like. They made the story interesting but not comical, which is great. When there was humor in the story it was well placed, and didn't take away from the mystery. The conclusion was gripping and I loved how it ended. I found out this was a series and immediately knew I would be reading the second book ( )

*Thank you to Edelweiss , The Publisher and The Author for allowing me to read this book in return for a fair and hones review*
Hello Fellow Readers,

So going into this book, I didn't really know how I was going to feel. Although I liked the synopsis, I was worried it would be more comedy hi-jinks, with a smidge of mystery. I was pleasantly surprised that this was not the case. I was even more surprised that I did not guess the ending, weird right? It has been such a long time where I haven't correctly guessed the ending of a book that it made me excited to see what was going on. I ended up reading this book in about a day.

First off I loved Capestan, despite the fact that she was basically in charge of unwanted cops, she didn't let that stop her from actually doing her job and trying. She was not some defeated has-been captain, she took what she got and ran with it, and it worked! Ultimately the squads job is to take cold unsolved cases and solve them, however no one actually expects the squad to solve these cases. This lack of faith doesn't actually stop the m from trying to solve these cases.

Secondly, there was not a single person on the squad that I hated. While some may be slightly annoying, there wasn't one I didn't like. They made the story interesting but not comical, which is great. When there was humor in the story it was well placed, and didn't take away from the mystery. The conclusion was gripping and I loved how it ended. I found out this was a series and immediately knew I would be reading the second book. ( )