La dernière chasse by Jean-Christophe Grangé (review)

After a perilous plunge into the river during the final battle with a murderess twenty years ago in Les rivières pourpres (1998), detective Pierre Niémans unexpectedly returns more volatile and unpredictable than ever. Unable to continue in his prior capacity, he becomes head of a non-essential, experimental crime-fighting project. For his partner at the Office central contre les crimes de sang, he chooses Ivana Bogdanovi, whom he mentored through police academy and who, like her superior, has turned to law-enforcement to exorcize childhood demons. Their first investigation is the gruesome murder of Jürgen Geyersberg, heir of a wealthy German aristocratic family. Though he was killed on his family's Alsatian forestlands, Count Geyersberg is a German citizen. As a result, Niémans and Bogdanovi find themselves hampered by both the bureaucratic demands of the Landeskriminalamt of the Bade-Württemberg region and the intentional lack of communication of the gendarmerie of the Haut-Rhin. Niémans's dogged pursuit of the eccentric members of the insular Geyersberg clan, as well as his unsolicited interrogations of local denizens, awaken dormant historical hostilities in the Franco-German area and uncover painful personal memories that the two cops have worked so hard to forget. Vivid descriptions of the foreboding Black Forest, the city of Freiburg's fairytale structures, and the peculiar architectural residences of the locals elevate the narrative tension. Nazi notions of genetic purity and ethnic cleansing that made Les rivières pourpres so chilling resurface in the legends of Himmler's Black Hunters, a ruthless brigade of violent criminals with trained "blood dogs" who chased and killed without uttering a sound. The tradition of the hunt unites all these elements. Its forms, tactics, weaponry, and rituals are explained in detail. The victim's body was found displayed according to the rites of the "silent hunt" which involves selecting and stalking a single chosen prey, gradually approaching it before finally killing it. The names of the novel's three parts are the three stages of the hunt which are mirrored in the plot. Thus, the Geyersbergs' participation in their annual hunt, Niémans's tracking of the criminal, and Grangé's toying with the reader cleverly overlap, making the novel great fun to read. There is one caveat, however. La dernière chasse is in fact the written form of the initial episodes of a made-for-television series featuring inspector Niémans and bearing the 1998 novel's title. So those who have already viewed the series' first season, which debuted in November 2018, are likely to be somewhat disappointed in the novel. But like the hunt, the pleasure lies in the chase. Even if this is not one of Grangé's best books, La dernière chasse is worth reading. The fast-paced action and plot twists in an atmosphere heavy with suspense are a confirmation of the author's skill. Once again, Grangé's literary universe is mesmerizing, holding the reader, like a deer in headlights, until the end.