alex the commandant camille verhoeven trilogy

The plot draws the reader in from the very beginning and has perfectly placed twists designed to keep the reader permanently wrong-footed. I can see what it is that people like about ALEX. But he steps up to the plate and ultimately uses the case to help him gain some understanding of his own psychology as well as leading the complex hunt for a missing woman and the subsequent investigation. They are an ensemble I suppose though the lead is definitely Camille Verhoeven, a diminutive Commandant who is reluctant to take on the case as he is, four years after the event, still not fully recovered from the kidnapping and murder of his own wife. Regardless of how they come into play the police are introduced early and form an integral part of the story. I suspect most police forces would require a bit more than the vaguest of descriptions of a possible crime before doing much more than making a note, but perhaps French authorities operate differently to those I have direct experience of.

The fact that the police so thoroughly leap into an investigation at all – essentially throwing their entire resources behind searching for “a woman” and “a van” further stretched my credibility.

It is the convenience of this I found clunky as it soon becomes clear that no one would have been looking for Alex for quite some time and that without the community-minded bystander happening by at just the right moment the police investigation could not have been brought into the story at this point (or possibly ever). In the first of several plot contrivances that I never quite ‘bought’ Alex’s kidnapping is observed and reported to the police. Indeed so vivid is the depiction of Alex’s physical and psychological torture that imaginative readers could be forgiven for thinking they themselves have dangled from the ceiling of a warehouse in a small wooden cage…beaten…thirsty…cold…acting as unwilling bait for brazen urban rats.

Alex the commandant camille verhoeven trilogy