DEAD HORSEMEAT
by Dominique Manotti & translated by Amanda Hopkinson & Ros Schwartz
Paris, 1989, is the capital of European mercantile finance, cocaine smuggling, sweetheart deals, cover-ups, specialized brothels and, of course, dead horses.
Superintendent Theo Daquin doesn’t know what the connection is between Paola Jiménez, a dead informant, and Nicolas Berger, a dead advertising executive, but he’s convinced it has something to do with horses, since Paola was killed minutes after she phoned in a tip from a racetrack, and Berger’s car was blown up while he was chatting with a stable owner. Nor are humans the only victims. There have been three stable fires in Chantilly, and the corpse of cocaine-dealing gypsy blacksmith Dimitri Rouma couldn’t be identified until the remains of the late Khulna de Viveret were hoisted from on top of it. Fanning out in every direction, investigators quickly find that in every direction their urgent attention is needed. Meanwhile, the Berlin Wall trembles.
Manotti (Rough Trade, 2005) provides truly labyrinthine skullduggery and a furious pace. Her translators add English prose clipped within an inch of its life.