Strange and compelling story of a man who, apparently by chance, stops in a small town and becomes involved in the lives of several people, including a restaurant owner with a sick wife, a down-and-out couple looking to cash in, and a hotel clerk who is attracted to him. Interspersed with the present day narrative, we have glimpses of the man's prior life with his wife and daughter, who we know have died, but not how. The ending here may not sit well with a lot of readers. My own feelings are ambivalent, but the writing from start to finish is superb, and Garnier opens up the lives of his characters in very revealing and believable ways. Recommended. ( )

J'ai un avis tout sauf tranché sur ce livre. La dédicace à Jean-Bernard Pouy en début de bouquin me laissait plutôt présager du bon.
Le ton général correspond bien à ce présage, les personnages aussi, un peu loufoques, un peu sortis de nulle part, leurs relations les uns avec les autres, l'enchaînement serré.
Mais dans le détail... un peu trop d'expressions tarabiscotées, de métaphores cheloues, une histoire qui se termine de manière un peu trop brutale (même si ça tient - à peu près - la route).
Bref, ça ne me laissera sans doute pas un souvenir impérissable... ( )

I really enjoyed this book! It was absurd, dark, and funny. It reminded me of Boris Vian's work. Highly recommended.

If you "like" similes, you will "like" Garnier's style immensely. Examples include:

"The TV screen spewed a stream of incoherent images and gurgling sounds, like blood bubbling from a slit throat."

"...two young men in ill fitting suits who talked business with the seriousness of a pair of children playing at being grown-ups."

"Orchids were ugly. They looked like photos of venereal diseases in medical books."

"The toilet he was standing in front of looked like a pelican made of white china, its beak open..." ( )

In the Bible, Gabriel is God's messenger, and in Pascal Garnier's The Panda Theory, his namesake delivers a bleak message indeed:
Happiness is a calamity you can never recover from. As soon as you catch a glimpse of it, the door slams shut and you spend the rest of your life bitterly regretting what is no more.
Through a series of flashbacks, we learn about the experiences in Gabriel's life which have shaped this philosophy; those flashbacks come more quickly the closer we come to the book's classic noir ending, building the tension until the past and present collide in a sudden burst of violence.

At times, Gabriel's thoughts sound like those of an amoral psychopath: "It was a day to kill someone for no reason"; he cannot "feel the difference between good and evil." However, he also believes that he performs a "service," whether cooking meals for a bistro owner whose wife is in a coma, paying the hotel bill of an abandoned girlfriend, or offering companionship to a lonely hotel receptionist, and it is this desire to be of service which is the key to Gabriel's character and ultimately horrific actions.

The Panda Theory rewards reflection, leading me to raise my rating from 3.5 to 4 stars after writing this review. I recommend this book, and this author, to those who want more from their crime fiction than entertainment or fleeting thrills.

I received a free copy of The Panda Theory through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. ( )