Syndrome E

Starred review from June 4, 2012
Spare evocative prose propels French author Thilliez’s stellar U.S. debut. When French film buff Ludovic Sénéchal goes blind after viewing an old short he picked up at an estate sale in Lille, Belgium, he calls ex-girlfriend Lucie Henebelle, a police lieutenant in Lille. Lucie, who’s preoccupied with the illness of one of her daughters, views the mysterious film without losing her vision, though she’s shaken by its violent, disturbing images. Meanwhile, Chief Insp. Franck Sharko of the Paris Violent Crimes unit, who lost his wife and daughter five years earlier “in horrible circumstances,” must sort out how five bodies, each missing the top of its skull, ended up buried in a riverbank in a small town near Le Havre. Once Lucie and Sharko discover a link between their two investigations, they embark on a worldwide voyage toward the chilling truth. This is a crackerjack story that most readers will devour in one sitting. Agent: Aurélie Laure, international rights director, Univers Poche.

August 1, 2012
In this terrific French thriller, a veteran Paris profiler struggling with paranoid schizophrenia and a lonely female police detective are brought together by a series of gruesome murders that have something to do with an old experimental film containing disturbing subliminal images. Chief Inspector Franck Sharko is a medicated mess. His wife, who died with their daughter in a horrific accident, appears to him in taunting visions; he runs toy trains in his apartment to blot out sounds in his head. But he's a lot better off than five men who were buried with the tops of their heads cut off and their brains removed. Detective Lucie Hennebelle, a single mom whose daughter is in the hospital with a mysterious ailment, has two patients to attend to after an old boyfriend of hers is blinded by an experimental movie he bought in a house sale. After others who have had contact with the film are murdered--one of them is hung with the film strips of Good Day for a Hanging--Lucie follows a lead to Montreal, where the film was shot in the '50s and at least one of the girls who appeared in it still lives. Sharko is sent to Egypt, where three girls were victimized in the same manner as the five men, and his own life is threatened. Teaming up in Canada, the investigators learn about the little-known phenomenon of Syndrome E--the inducement of hysteria and violence through sensory control--and its possible role in mass killings. The Nazis, the French Legion and the CIA all have had a stake in the film experiments. This novel boasts distinctive characters you want to spend time with, a lively plot, evocative settings, fun film references and, icing on the cake, an enjoyable offbeat romance. Having achieved bestseller status in Europe, Thilliez is poised to do the same in the U.S.

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April 1, 2012
Subliminal images packed into a little-known film from the 1950s are so horrifying that a friend of Det. Lucie Hennebelle has gone blind after watching it. Meanwhile, Inspector Franck Sharko is investigating five murders that seem to be related to the film. As terror escalates worldwide, it appears that in its early stages neuroscience was used not for good but for evil. A French best seller; rights sold to 11 countries.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2012
Unsettling scenarios pervade the pages of French novelist Thilliez's American debut featuring two determined detectives and a case that has each pondering man's inhumanity to man. When French sleuth Lucie Hennebelle's friend develops a case of spontaneous blindness after watching a gruesome film, she devotes every waking hour to finding the cause. Joining her on her mission is brooding Paris police profiler Franck Sharko, who, with his imaginary friend, Eugenie, is quite a study himself. The pair soon discovers a series of distressing subliminal images embedded in the film, among them, a beautiful actress with a gaping hole in her stomach and innocent children slaughtering rabbits. As those connected to the film start turning up dead, Hennebelle and Sharko find themselves entangled in a terrifying investigation involving medicine, science, religion, and art. Thilliez delivers crisp prose and a scorching plot that takes readers from the lively streets of Paris to the deadly Egyptian desert. But his relentless graphic imagesslit eyeballs and sliced skulls, to name twomay make even the most jaded mystery readers squirm.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)