Scottish author Graeme Macrae Burnet loves playing meta-textual games. And that’s patently evident in his trilogy of crime novels featuring French police detective Geroges Gorski, of which A Case of Matricide is the third and last. The books are purportedly written over forty years ago by a little known French author Raymond Brunet and merely translated by Burnet (note the similarities in the names).
Some background explains all of this. The first book of this series The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau is the only one of Brunet’s books to be popular. Both this and the previous novel in this series The Accident on the A35, were translated from manuscripts that were lodged with solicitors and released only on the death of Brunet’s mother. But all three draw from Brunet’s life and in particular, the people and locations of the French town of Saint-Louis. As such they are full of reflections and resonances and clues to the character, experiences and desires of Brunet himself.
A Case of Matricide opens with short vignettes focussed on various characters in Saint-Louis. The narrative then centres back in on Police Chief Georges Gorski as he goes about his day. Not much happens – there is a mysterious Slavic guest at the local hotel, a local, the mother of a locally famous author called Raymond Duymann is worried that her son is ploitting to kill her, and Gorski himself is dealing with his own mother who is suffering from dementia. Eventually there is a somewhat mysterious death of a local businessman, but Gorski is warned off investigating by his ex-father-in-law the town’s mayor.
Do not go into A Case of Matricide expecting a classic French mystery (a la Maigret) with a clever denouement. This is first a foremost a character study of Gorski and, in a reflected way of the author Brunet, but also of the town itself and its denizens, sitting in a fog of corruption and compromise. So, for example, Duymann is clearly a stand in for Brunet (at one point it appears that Duymann is writing a novel called A Case of Matricide), but so is Gorski. While this can be read as a stand-alone novel, Burnet builds on the character, his history, and the ideas that form the previous two books.
A lengthy Afterward by Burnet explains some of this but also pulls him, as the translator, into this mind-bending spiral. Burnet explains some of these resonances and how he has interpreted Brunet’s wishes, and then takes himself to the locations mentioned in the books, including a small pub in Saint-Louis. So that even through to its final page A Case of Matricide, and the series as a whole, plays like a hall of mirrors. The way in which Burnet has been able to channel the French formal style, while playing with crime fiction tropes and delivering an implicit but deep character study over these three novels has been nothing short of incredible.
Robert Goodman
For more of Robert’s reviews, visit his blog Pile By the Bed
Other reviews you might enjoy:
- All the Colours of the Dark (Chris Whitaker) – book review
- Clarke (Holly Throsby) – book review
- The Union of Synchronised Swimmers (Cristina Sandhu) – book review
Robert Goodman is a book reviewer, former Ned Kelly Awards judge and institutionalised public servant based in Sydney. This and over 450 more book reviews can be found on his website Pile By the Bed.
