Book review: Alex

If Winston Smith’s Room 101 nightmare in “Nineteen Eighty-Four” proved too disturbing an image for you, then it is probably best to steer clear of “Alex” by Pierre Lemaitre, the first thriller by this popular French author to be translated into English. The eponymous heroine, beautiful and alone, tries to tell herself that she isn’t being watched by the man across the street. She is almost convinced, and then she is bundled into an anonymous white van, taken to an abandoned warehouse and subjected to an ordeal that at times is too disturbingly awful to read, let alone imagine. To say too much would be to give away the horrors of Lemaitre’s horribly well-thought-out kidnapping, but here is a taster of Alex’s thoughts. “A wet rat is even more terrifying than a dry one: the fur looks dirtier, the eyes beadier, seemingly more vicious. When wet, the long tail looks slimy, as though it is a different animal, a snake.”

Alex attempts to escape while Commandant Camille Verhoeven tries to solve the mystery of her kidnapping before it is too late: all he knows is that a woman was abducted from the street. He doesn’t know who she is or why she was taken — there are no ransom notes, and the likelihood of finding her alive is trickling away with every hour he waits.

The winner of countless French crime-writing prizes, Lemaitre is far too canny to join the ranks of thriller authors who merely revel in disturbing details and gory crimes. Where another novel would have finished, “Alex” is just beginning, and the book moves from read-as-fast-as-you-can horror to an intricately plotted race to a dark truth.

Lemaitre — and his able translator, Frank Wynne — also find time to flesh out the cast thoroughly. Camille, the detective hero, is a victim of his mother’s smoking during pregnancy and has never grown taller than 4-foot-11. He is pugnacious, complicated, driven and, irritatingly for his superiors, brilliant. As Lemaitre puts it, “when he practises modesty and restraint he can be a little theatrical, a little too Racine”. His eclectic band of helpers range from the penny-pinching Armand, who swipes cigarettes from new recruits and sweets from the shopkeepers he is questioning, to a wonderfully realised local policeman who has a habit of “peppering his conversation with English words ‘personally, I find it “amusing”, as they say in English ... It operated as a brothel — very “discreet”, as they say in English’”. Everyone is unobtrusively brought to life through their quirks and oddities — especially the magistrate who points out to Camille that they don’t know if they’re dealing with a male or female criminal. “When he makes an insinuation like this, reminding them nothing is proven, he invariably contrives to have a moment of silence so that everyone understands the significance of the subtext.”

There is humour here, and characters to return to, but really “Alex” is about thrills. And as the novel barrels triumphantly towards its unexpected but satisfying conclusion, it is in this respect that it delivers.

–Guardian News & Media Ltd