 The Voice
of Aliette Nouvelle
AUTHOR: John Brooke ISBN: 0921833652
In his heyday, Jacques Normand was France's Public Enemy Number One, a glamorous rogue who captured the imagination of the entire country. As he led the police on a merry chase, he also made the career of Commissaire Louis Moreau, former head of the Paris Anti-gangs unit...now the commander of a small Police Judiciare force in a sleepy border town. After escaping from prison, Normand fled Paris and has been neither seen nor heard from for more than ten years. And because the Normand file has lain dormant since before she joined the force, Inspector Aliette Nouvelle has naturally assumed that everyone's favourite outlaw is dead and the case closed. But one afternoon, Commissaire Moreau drops Normand's file on her desk. The Commissaire is convinced that Normand is still very much alive and in the vicinity. Find him, he commands Aliette. Bring him in. Put him away for good. Aliette Nouvelle is a new heroine for the 90s—smart, single and intuitive, but more interested in quietly and non-violently getting the job done than in receiving front-page coverage for her sometimes unorthodox methods of crime-solving. She knows she is regarded as a rising star in the force and believes that her years of hard work and her excellent record are about to bear fruit. She senses, rightly, that the soon-to-retire Commissaire has chosen to pass the torch on to her. And so, although she remains skeptical, Aliette accepts his challenge. She sets out to dig up a forgotten hero. Her only clues are those she finds in the outlaw's out-of-print memoir, and in the gloomy face on a faded WANTED poster. Thus the cat and mouse game begins, and what a chase it turns out to be!
REVIEWS: "This book, by Montreal poet and filmmaker John Brooke, dropped into my lap and I was smitten: interesting premise, fascinating central character and good writing. In a sleepy French border town, Inspector Aliette Nouvelle is ready for more than ordering around local thugs. Then her boss drops a cold case on her, which might mean a promotion. Ten years ago, Jacques Normand escaped from a top-security prison. Now she must ferret him out. Poetic images, film stills and literary writing, none out of place." —The Globe & Mail
"Inspector Aliette Nouvelle, single at 35, has been handed a demanding assignment: track down and arrest Jacques Normand, an infamous criminal believed to be living in her city in the Alsace region of France. Nouvelle's only clues are an old wanted poster of Normand and an autobiography he wrote while in prison. So begins a fascinating story of detection in which one soon begins to wonder who is tracking whom. For the first third of the novel, one watches the action unfold through the eyes of Aliette. Then the perspective changes as author Brooke chooses to retell parts of the story through Normand's eyes. In essence, this novel becomes a study of two characters locked in combat, with any number of outcomes possible." —The Halifax Sunday Daily News Other
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