Le Talisman de la Villette*
Claude Izner
Published 10/18 • October
2006 • 350
pages
Sophie Colpaert
Translation: Helena Chadderton
Claude
Izner has continued to delight us with reconstructions of Paris
at the end of the 19 th century since 2003 and the first volume
in the Victor Legris bookshop investigations, Mystery
of rue des Saints-Pères, which
was awarded a Michel Lebrun prize.
Behind the pseudonym
Claude Izner lie two sisters, Liliane Korb and Laurence Lefèvre, greatly
experienced in the exercise of writing with four hands. For a long
time they were booksellers on the banks of the Seine, they then first
entertained children with stories in which books often played a principal
role. Then they turned to adults, with the beautiful Sens
dessus dessous (Viviane
Hamy publishers, 1999), a detective novel set in a picturesque Paris
with a bookseller and a photographer as protagonists. And just for
the record, these two sisters are nieces of the famous lyric writer,
Francis Lemarque, À Paris…
In The Talisman of la Villette (published 18/10/2006),
Victor Legris's sixth investigation, the two sisters have once again
refined their style while at the same time perfectly depicting the
historical backdrops to their plots.
It is February 1894 and Victor Legris
is bored. His work as a bookseller is grinding him down but he
doesn't dare admit it to his friend and adoptive father, Kenji
Mori. Indeed what is beginning to fascinate Victor, is photography.
Pounding the streets of Paris loaded down with his material and
recording everyday scenes, forcing people to take notice of the
problems in certain areas, he could spend every day at it! Well,
this, and playing the detective of course! He promised Tasha when
marrying her to give up his penchant for crime, which frightens
her so, but he finds it difficult to resist a real puzzle, especially
when one comes looking for him. The painter Maurice Laumier, Tasha's
former mentor, confides in Victor his partner's worries. Mireille
has had no word of her cousin Loulou for three weeks, which is
extremely unlike her. Victor hates Laumier so much that he at first
refuses outright to help him. A short time afterwards the strangled
body of a young woman is found in La Villette. Mireille rushes to
the morgue, only to find Loulou's body, her beautiful dark blonde
hair dyed black… Mireille's
tears move Victor to accept to investigate Loulou's murder. This
new matter also excites Joseph Pignot, the bookshop assistant. Each
of Victor's new enquiries fires Joseph's imagination, as he writes
serialised novels for le Passe-Partout . As both their other
halves disapprove of the risks they are running, Victor and Joseph
behave like two boys, creating ruse after ruse to conduct their enquiry
as discretely as possible. This new investigation reveals the underbelly
of a grand couture house and the pitiful conditions of the workers,
exploited and abused in the shadows while elegant, disdainful ladies
strut about in full view. The plot also gives the subject of maternity
more than its fair share of treatment, a state which at the end of
the 19 th century, often meant death…
* The Talisman of la Villette
