The Black Jersey

The Tour de France has been plagued by a series of targeted attacks — contrived to look like accidents — on key riders, culminating in a murder. It looks as though there's someone in the closed and overexcited world of riders, managers and support staff who is prepared to go to any lengths to ensure that the right person ends up in yellow in Paris, but who can it be, and in whose interests are they working...?

The narrator, French-Colombian rider Marc Moreau, is approached for help by the head of the police investigation, Commissaire Favre, ostensibly on the grounds that he had been a military policeman before turning professional. But of course Moreau spent most of his time in the army training for amateur cycle races, and he's not show more very well up on detective work. And besides, there's the small matter of competing in one of the world's toughest sporting events to take up most of his waking hours. But when he has two narrow escapes from attempts on his life, he sees the need to try to work out what's going on before anyone else gets seriously hurt.

Moreau's role in the team is as a domestique, to support and protect the star, his close friend the American rider Steve Panata, who is on his way to his fifth Tour de France win. Although his position means that he's never been allowed so much as a stage-win in his own right, Moreau is an outstanding climber, and he's coming under strong pressure from friends outside the team to move out from Steve's shadow and build a career for himself. One way or the other, he's going to have to betray somebody close to him...

This is perhaps not the most sophisticated of crime stories, but there's an interesting element of moral ambiguity, and the background story of the tactics, politics, and sheer grunt of competition in the Tour is well-developed and very interesting, if not always completely plausible. A necessary and quite workable compromise between a readable story and the dull routine that would probably be all you would get off the course in a fully realistic account. show less

Murder and sabotage among the elite teams of the Tour de France. It’s fun if you like cycling but I imagine tedious if you don’t.

I think some things may have been lost in translation but generally it was a fun time and I’m still turning over the final pages on my mind.

Hurray, another cycling novel! And on the Tour de France: perfect reading for July. The book gets better after the first few chapters, and turns into a twisty mystery. However, I don't think that the author quite gets cycling. His descriptions of the race often skip over important sections, and the characters don't seem to be authentic professional athletes (e.g., forgetting to eat after a race stage, or waiting hours for a massage?). I think that Tim Krabbé's "The Rider" (1978) and Joe Mungo Reed's "We Begin Our Ascent" (2018) both write the cycling better, but I'm happy to see another addition to the sparse genre.

I LOVED THIS BOOK! The Black Jersey is filled with twists, turns, and murder! I really felt sorry for Marc Moreau, as he felt neglected by his mom and felt that she didn't love him enough to be in his life once he was grown. Marc was a professional cyclist and he trained in hopes to qualify for The Tour de France which was led by his American friend, Steve who was favored to win. Marc and Steve were best friends and considered to be brothers. During the competition, all sorts of mishaps plagued the men, from food poisonings, to sprained ankles, to murder, and the two had to watch out for the other!

‘There’s a killer among us, and the police have tasked me with finding out who it is.’

Even if you don’t know much about cycling, you will have heard of the Tour de France, possibly the toughest gig in any sport. This murder-mystery is set during those torrid 3 weeks as strange accidents befall some of the competitors, and as events take on a more murderous intent the web of intrigue and fear widens. At the start of the race our main character and narrator, Marc Moreau – a French-Colombian domestique to the great Steve Panata from the US in team Fonar – is approached by Inspector Favre of the French police and is asked to investigate the events from within the peloton, his reason being that before becoming a professional show more cyclist Moreau worked in a police unit during his time in the military.

The book progresses over the three-week period of le Tour, but also skips back in time to show the background of the main friendship between Moreau and Panata, and the developing relationship between Moreau and his girlfriend Fiona, who works for the sport’s governing body, the UCI. As the race goes on various individuals are targeted, including Moreau himself, and he and others have to try and solve the case before the race reaches Paris. Moreau works his way through several theories, and the list of suspects is slowly whittled down – but will he or Favre solve it before a final act of violence? And just who will win the biggest prize of all?

For fans of cycling this will tickle your fancy. But for general fans of a whodunnit/mystery this should also appeal. It has a feel of a locked-room mystery; there are only so many suspects, and the hotels are closely guarded. The clues are there – it all gets a little complicated, however – and the ending has a nice twist to it that leaves the book dangling.

I enjoyed this, but I’m a huge cycling fan so I was probably always going to like it. This is very much a book about people living in a bubble, devoting their entire efforts on just one thing. What you don’t get are long descriptions of towns and scenery as the race works its way around France – and in some ways this is fine, because that’s exactly the point of view of the cyclist. The main characters have enough background story to them to flesh them out, while the lesser characters are just two-dimensional and play a bit-part. So, all in all, a fun take on a murder-mystery that probably ticks enough boxes for me to award it the green points jersey: 3.5 stars, which I’ll round up to 4 cos, what the heck, its about le Tour. show less

A good mystery combined with an insider's story of the 3 weeks of the Tour de France. It is good to be reminded of what incredible athletes those cyclists are.

Der Amerikaner Steve und der Franzose mit kolumbianischen Wurzeln Marc sind seit der Jugend wie Brüder verbunden. Die beiden Radprofis fahren zum 5. Mal für das französische Team die Tour de France. Steve ist der unumstrittene Kapitän, der 4-fache Sieger dieses mörderischen Rennens, Marc sein bester Helfer. Als die Leiche des Engländers Fleming entdeckt wird, glaubt niemand an Selbstmord. Marc wird von einem Kommissar rekrutiert, Undercover die Szene zu beobachten. Die Tour wird von weiteren brutalen Vorfällen überschattet. Marcs Rad, das er kurz vorher mit Steve tauschte, war manipuliert und Steve rast eine steile Böschung hinab. Gemeinsam mit seiner Freundin Fiona, die dem Technik-Team angehört, spekulieren sie über den show more vermeintlichen Mörder. Dabei wird die körperliche Belastung der 20 Etappen mehr und mehr zur Qual. Bei Marc reift der Gedanke, aus dem Schatten des Freundes herauszutreten und endlich selbst das gelbe Trikot zu gewinnen. Ausgerechnet Fiona liefert ihm dafür einen stichhaltigen Grund. Nach "Die Korrupten" (ID-A 13/20) ein außergewöhnlich faszinierender Thriller des mexikanischen Autors. show less