“CIt’s a common thing during investigations, and I know this phenomenon: the halfling spends his life at the window, but when something happens, no one sees anything. » This observation runs through a number of dark novels (we think This is how women dieby Didier Decoin, adapted by Lucas Belvaux in 38 Witnesses.).
But this Detective novelwhatever the title, it isn’t actually one, and the crime that serves as the excuse is annoying but harmless: the disappearance (the news item, in fact, made the headlines!) of the letter “U” from the signs of certain businesses in the town of Pau.
Philibert Humm, who has appeared as a freshwater sailor in Roman river (Interallié Prize 2022) and as a train tramp in station novel (2024), this time playing a Sunday investigator and meeting Pau to clarify the story.
Excited and melancholic
This Sherlock Holmes did not go alone, but was flanked by the famous Watson: his friend, the actor Vincent Dedienne, was also a lover of offal, which he would consume at every meal with alarming gusto.
Therefore, in Pau, “no one saw anything.” And the two detectives, donning Inspector Columbo raincoats for the occasion, must compete in intuition and cunning to trap the thief (or thieves) from the “U.”
To find
Kangaroo today
Answer
It is difficult to summarize their adventures: the book consists of humorous philosophical digressions full of wit and melancholy, like those of Frédéric Berthet or Jérôme Leroy. This Detective novel will delight those who miss those suits, the quiet hotels of provincial prefectures, boiled eggs on the counter and tight little black clothes. Everything that escapes attention, when read, is not the letter “U”, but our current affairs that are caught in its gravity.
“Detective novel”by Philibert Humm (Ecuador, 192 pp., €22).
