Surface

Last year we enjoyed publication of the author’s historical thriller The Winter Warriors in an English Translation. Thanks again to the legendary British publisher Christopher MacLehose we return to Norek’s violently thought-provoking police procedurals with publication of the English Translation of  2019’s “Surface”.

The novel focuses on the rehabilitation of Police Captaine Noemie Chastain, an officer with Paris Drug Squad. The opening features a violent raid on a notorious Drug Dealer [Sohan Bizien], who shoots Chastain in the face with a shotgun. Following emergency treatment which saves her life, she has to undergo months of therapy which consists of both facial reconstruction surgery as well as mental therapy with Dr Melchior, a Psychiatrist experienced with the battlefield injured [earned during the Iraq conflict]. During her rehabilitation she is sent words of encouragement from her junior colleagues Chloe and Jonathon but her boyfriend [and fellow Drug Squad Detective] Adriel is unable to cope with the ‘new’ Noemie. Her facial disfigurement is as pronounced as her mental scarring.

Eager to re-join her former Police colleagues in the Paris Drugs Squad, the Director-General however has other ideas. Noemie Chastain has to pass tough re-qualification tests at the Police gun-range [following her injuries and rehab] before being allowed back into the Paris Drug Squad. Sadly she fails the field-assessment [at the gun range] as she remains haunted by traumatic memories of the shotgun blast that tore into her face and mind. In consequence, the Director-General assigns her to a rural police station Decazeville in the Aveyron region – a backwater. This is ostensibly to aid her recovery but it is also a political manoeuvre by the Director General of the Paris Jurisdiction.

With her failure at the police shooting range, Noemie is forced to accept the ‘soft’ assignment to Decazeville.

She is met at the train station in the village of Avalone by Lieutenant Romain Valent, and taken to her allocated [rental] house. The small property [and Landrover car] have been offered to the Decazeville Police via the Lieutenant’s father – the wealthy landowner and town Mayor Pierre Valant. Noemie is assigned Lieutenant Romian Valant, Gardia de la Paix Soulignac [aka ‘Bambi’] and Brigadier Bousquet as direct reports. She is tasked to evaluate police operations in the region which is centred at Decazeville but also has responsibility for Aubin, Cransac, Firmi, Viviez and Avalone which fall under the remit of the National Gendarmerie headed regionally by Commandant Roze. It seems that the regional police structure is being scrutinised by the National Police [Sûreté Nationale]. Noemie realises her task is to examine the policing covertly, and report back to H.Q. who wish to make ‘cut backs’ [aka ‘cost savings’] due to the sorry state of the regional economy.

Though a sleepy rural backwater, she is immediately confronted by the tragic death of retired [and disabled] local architect who died on his chairlift. It appears that the old man’s house suffered a power-cut, and as he lived alone [with few friends] he died, trapped in his chairlift unable to summon help.

Soon, Noemie has to move onto real crimes when the body of a badly decomposed child is discovered in a discarded [and concealed barrel].  The legend [or myth] of the child abducting monster ‘The Ogre of Malbouche’ from 1899 resurfaces as does memories of a seasonal worker [and alleged paedophile] who abducted three local children and escaped the police over two decades earlier. It seems that this seasonal worker was employed by the Mayor, Pierre Valant.

So much for Decazeville being a rural backwater as Captaine Noemie Chastain, and her colleagues - Lieutenant Romain Valent, Patrolman ‘Bambi’ and Brigadier Bousquet soon have their work cut-out investigating fresh evidence on a cold case. Having the Mayor’s son on her team adds an additional problem to Noemie, as it does to the Mayor himself. When DNA testing is undertaken on the decomposed body of the child in the barrel, old feuds resurface from the families of Alex Dorin, Cyril Casteran and Elsa Saulnier – the three children that vanished over two decades ago. Mayor Pierre Valant is concerned with the adverse media attention the region is now experiencing, especially as it jeopardises badly needed inward investment from China. It becomes evident that the Mayor’s xenophobia simmers barely beneath his surface charm. He is also reticent in discussing the matter of the alleged paedophile who hid away among his foreign [seasonal] workers twenty years ago - while the locals whispered tales of ‘The Ogre of Malbouche’.

Like the mental wounds hidden under Noemie’s reconstructed face, and the secrets concealed from view in this small town – Olivier Norek’s eponymous title ‘Surface’ - gives the novel its theme. It is as thought-provoking as it is disturbing because beneath the placid surface of this rural French region lurks horror. Even in the most peaceful of places, historical secrets are hidden beneath the strata of the land.

It often takes an outsider to reveal the fault-lines.

Not to be missed.

Translated by Nick Castor