"After the war" is a book whose plot is located in Bordeaux at the end of the 1950s, rue du Pont de la Mousque and rue Saint-Rémi, place de la Bourse, cours de l'Intendance and the Marne, Saint-André hospital, Caudéran district… So many places to discover for tourists visiting Bordeaux in 2016.
This book plunges us into a slice of life after the war, when war still kills… While young people leave for the war in Algeria, the city has not finished settling its scores with history.
The central character, André, has returned from the camps completely destroyed, driven by an intact desire for revenge against the one who sent him to Auschwitz: the infamous Inspector Darlac. The latter, who does not see that the spirit of the times has changed, will play all the twisted tricks to get rid of the shadow of the survivor. A third character, the young Daniel, orphan, idealistic as one can be at 20, is torn between a desire for adventure and the family history that catches up with him.
"After the war" is much more than a thriller about revenge, it is a novel of death, love, violence and baseness in which the complexity of humans, alternately cowardly or courageous, heroic or pitiful, makes for a gripping tale. It is also a book about loss, absence and the impossibility of finding in oblivion any relief from one's suffering.
A dark novel, powerful, despairing, with a suspense that keeps the reader in suspense until the last line and whose sticky atmosphere remains in the memory for a long time.
It is also the portrait of a city, and of an era that continues to resonate in our collective consciousness as a romantic setting for highly drawn figures.
« Herve Le Corre hits hard with this masterfully constructed novel. Revealed to a wide audience by The Man with Sapphire Lips (Critics' Mystery Prize), he won all the votes with Torn Hearts (Mystery Prize, Nouvel Obs/Bibliobs Noir Novel Prize and Grand Prize for Police Literature). Born in Bordeaux, Hervé Le Corre lives in the Bordeaux region, where he teaches”. Source Editions Rivages.
- After the War – Hervé le Corre
- Editions Shores/Black Collection – 528 pages
- 19.90 € in large format
- European Polar Point Award 2014