Product Description

In a world of knife-edge glaciers, a hideous crime leads two maverick detectives to confront the limits of human evil.

A corpse is discovered wedged in an isolated crevice. It has been horribly mutilated. The brilliant but violent ex-commando Pierre Niémans is sent from Paris to the French Alps to lead the investigation. Meanwhile, in a town in south-west France, Karim Abdouf, a young Arab policeman, is trying to find out why the tomb of a young child has been desecrated. When a second baby is found, high up in a glacier, the paths of the two policemen are joined in the search for their killers, a trail that embroils them in the mysterious cult of the Blood-Red Rivers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #559109 in Books
• Published on: 2003-07-29
• Released on: 2003-07-29
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

From Amazon.com
The roman policier, or detective novel, has long been popular in France, but few works by French authors have received much attention in other countries. Jean-Christophe Grange's Blood-Red Rivers enjoyed considerable success in France (film rights have already been sold), and has arrived to test American waters.

When a mutilated corpse is discovered wedged in an isolated crevice on a rock face outside Guernon, a university town in the French Alps, Pierre Niémans--a brilliant Parisian detective given to uncontrollable fits of violence--arrives to investigate. Eager to escape the cloud of an official inquiry into his behavior (beating a hooligan so violently that the man is in a coma), Niémans swaggers into the tiny town, torn between outrage at being exiled and determination to prove himself to the superiors he detests. The body hints at a long history of animosity between the university and the townspeople; when another body is found frozen in a glacier, Niémans' investigation becomes linked to that of another maverick policeman, Karim Abdouf, who has a chip on his shoulder even bigger than Niémans's. Abdouf is attempting to discover why a child's tomb has been desecrated, and why all official traces of that child's existence have disappeared. When he discovers that the child's mysterious, beautiful mother comes from Guernon, Abdouf realizes that the antagonism between town and gown is not a matter of philosophy, but of life and death.

Blood-Red Rivers possesses the seeds of an interesting concept, but its promise is overwhelmed by a plot that lurches from one absurdity to another, clumsy characterization, a tedious reliance on clichéd dialogue, and a too-literal translation. It was touted by a review in Le Figaro as "the best thriller since Silence of the Lambs," but there's no comparison between Grange's novel and Thomas Harris's skilled plotting, concise language, and disturbingly sympathetic portrait of a madman. Given the number of truly talented French mystery and thriller authors, one hopes that more promising works will soon be sent across the Atlantic. --Kelly Flynn

From Publishers Weekly
A trigger-happy police superintendent from Paris and a dreadlocked maverick Arab policeman from a small French town are unlikely partners in this intricate thriller by French journalist Grang?. First separately, then together, Pierre Ni?mans and Karim Abdouf investigate a mind-boggling case involving suspected ritual killings, mistaken identities and long-held grudges in the French Alps. After Ni?mans nearly kills a machete-wielding rioter during a street mel?e, he is sent to the prosperous university town of Guernon to investigate the murder of a 25-year-old university librarian, who has been tortured, strangled and wedged up in the rock face of a towering glacier in the Alps. Interviews with the victim's beautiful bitchy wife and the young rock-climbing ice queen professor who found the body captivate Ni?mans, but another young man is discovered killed and tortured before the veteran detective is able to make much progress on the case. Meanwhile, Abdouf is pursuing his own investigation into the desecration of a mysterious child's grave in a nearby depressed small town. Fifteen years after the boy was buried, Abdouf finds himself searching for clues to his true identity and picks up a thread that leads him to Guernon and Ni?mans. Dozens of falsified files from the maternity ward at the university hospital, an old story of a woman who believed she and her daughter were being pursued by demons, and the gradually emerging outline of a killer's remorseless drive for revenge finally guide Ni?mans and Abdouf to a terrifying, climactic scene at river's edge. This brainteaser will have readers tied up in knots long before Grang?'s Gallic version of the Odd Couple join forces in the last quarter of the book. Though the denouement, in which a decades-old megalomaniacal scheme is revealed, strains credibility, Grang?'s fully developed charactersAparticularly second-generation French-Arab AbdoufAkeep the tale firmly anchored in reality. (Aug.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
'Absolutely riveting...packed with tense violent action' The Times

Customer Reviews

French Alps Crime Thriller
Blood Red Rivers is a first rate crime thriller set in and around a college campus in the French Alps. The story takes place over a 24 hour period as a tired and on the edge police lieutenant, Pierre Niemans, tries to piece together the clues left behind by a gruesome serial killer. The book is basically two stories which slowly merge into one, becoming an absolutely rivetting read along the way. The characters and locations are superb and the story is plotted in such a manner that it's almost impossible to put down as the two policeman reach their conclusion. Some people have criticised the ending however at no time did I feel let down by this novel, ending included. If you like action packed, and at times violent, police procedurals then this is truly the book for you.

Great read
I only read this book in the original French so far as it has not arrived yet at my house in English. It really kept my interest alive in what would happen next all through the book. I was toying with the idea of translating it for my boyfriend so that he could enjoy it too, but now I don't have to. It really surprised me in a pleasant way as how much it read like many American detective novels. I haven't found that quality in French writing much. I really liked the brooding atmosphere as well. I hope the translation lives up to the original.

Blood-Red Rivers
I read this book in the original during a recent French holiday and as it has become a best seller in France I planned to do an English translation. However, I now find that Mr. Monk has beaten me to it ! A pity as I think that this easily matches the action and suspense of, for example, "The Day After Tomorrow" or similar, at least for the first two hundred pages. I found the two lead characters engaging if relatively stereotypical and the plot is initially intriguing as it promises to involve neo-nazis, genetics, cloning, mad scientists etc. However,the novel runs out of steam about half way through,becomes muddled and over long and the ending, or "denouement" if you will, is a total anti-climax. In a way,in retrospect, I am rather glad I didn't have to translate it after all !....END