The Killing Tide

Starred review from December 2, 2019
A particularly tough day begins for Commisaire Georges Dupin in Bannalec’s superb fifth Brittany mystery (after 2017’s The Missing Corpse) when a fisherwoman from the Île de Sein is found in a container full of rotting fish with her throat slit. The discovery of two more people with their throats cut—one a dolphin researcher, the other a retired professor—launches a fast-paced investigation that puts perennially seasick Dupin, a former Paris police detective who’s a fish out of water in western Brittany, in headlong pursuit of a killer across the islands off the port of Douarnenez—and that exposes the seamy underside of commercial fishing. The dramatic conclusion leaves Dupin to reflect on the shadowy notions of justice, ambiguous endings, and the many mysteries of Brittany, where Celtic legends and Breton folklore are accepted as matter of fact parts of modern life. Bannelec (the pen name of Jörg Bong) has concocted the perfect blend of police procedural and travelogue.

December 1, 2019
From the oyster farms of Port Belon, Commissaire Georges Dupin (The Missing Corpse, 2019, etc.) pushes north to probe the mysterious deaths of two women near the bay of Douarnenez. Douarnenez is a fishing town where small family-owned boats jockey with large trawlers, all competing to wrest a living from the unpredictable Atlantic. Céline Kerkrom was a line fisher, one of the few women to own her own boat. She lived alone and kept to herself. So why would someone slit her throat and dump her body in a container of fish guts in the harbor's auction hall? Harbormistress Gaétane Gochat is appalled, not so much by the violence of the murder as by the disruption it causes to the fish hall. Dupin, on the other hand, doesn't mind rattling a few cages along the way to finding Céline's murderer. He confronts Charles Morin, owner of a large fleet of deep-sea trawlers as well as some coastal boats, who's rumored to take in more than the legal limit. He also chases down a local character known as Captain Vaillant, who's reputed to be a pirate. But more murders lead Dupin and inspectors Riwal and Kadeg to wonder if the origin of the crime really is local, since the second victim, Laetitia Darot, was an outsider, a researcher who studied the dolphins in the Parc Iroise. As usual, Dupin's drive to catch the killer quickly is balanced by his desire to enjoy the local cafes and the breathtaking Breton coast just a little bit longer. And as usual, justice triumphs. More of Bannalec's winning formula: a healthy chunk of Brittany with a bracing dash of murder.

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Starred review from December 1, 2019
The fifth mystery starring Commissaire Georges Dupin of the Brittany police is as captivating and harrowing as its predecessors. Bannalec plumbs coastal Brittany for its scenery, including the moody Atlantic (which his hero sometimes must traverse, to his great distress); its seaside caf�s; and its cuisine (meals are described in long and loving detail). Bannalec also serves up Breton myths, legends, and history. For example, his latest effort includes the fact that Napoleon invented the fish factory as a method of preserving fish for his armies. All of this atmosphere and information bubbles away nicely next to an intriguingly constructed mystery that begins with the discovery of the body of a young fisherwoman stuffed into a container in a harbor fish-auction hall. Within a few hours, another woman, this one a dolphin researcher, is found dead, her throat slit in the same manner as the other victim. Dupin must uncover the connection between the two murders?and then a third?each crime taking place at locations within an hour of each other. By book's end, readers will have learned a great deal about how wrenchingly hard it is to work in the fishing industry and how water pollution and corporate greed threaten all sea life. Bannalec's latest delivers on every level.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)