“Deadly legacy in Laudun”, who benefits from the crime?

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• Today, "Lethal Heritage in Laudun" by Christian Dorsan, published on September 7, 2022 by Editions Presses Littéraires.

Marceline Bodier, bookstagramer and contributor to the 20 Minutes Books reading group, recommends

by Christian Dorsan, published on September 7, 2022 by Éditions Presses Littéraires.

His favorite quote:

Why this book?

• Because it is the story of a family “marked by drama”.

  Sébastien Reynaud committed suicide: yes, but he was the husband of Cécile Clavel, with whom he lived in the Château de Blascours with his three brothers and sisters after the accidental death of their parents... And then it was also the handsome -brother of Emma Clavel, who died in a road accident from which the eldest of the siblings miraculously escaped… Don't you think that the siblings get off lightly?

  That's a lot of accidents?

  That this suicide falls well for… for whom, exactly: for the siblings, or others still?

• Because the author knows his Agatha Christie inside out!

  As with the queen of crime, the world is dangerously saturated with poisons;

  as in the murderess of Roger Ackroyd, psychology is in the foreground, in the exact proportion which makes it possible to understand the springs of the progression of the intrigue and the reasons for which the characters deviate from the right path.

  It is after all the least that one could expect from an author known for his intimate novels, always very fine in his analysis of falling out of love and relationships that have become impossible.

• Because Christian Dorsan has been able to renew the classic tandem

  of "good cop, bad cop" investigators with Géraldine Muguet, a classic investigator, and Guilhem Delarque, an atypical gay character in his profession, whom he has moreover left to find her better in backstage.

  “Delarque was in his place every time the others didn't intervene, didn't ask him anything.

  Finally, as the author confided to me in an interview, they are "two very distinct characters who complement each other and play a game of ping-pong", opposed so that humor can slip into their faults.

• Because Delarque is a Martinist.

  Martinism?

  It is a mystical current which, against all expectations, finds an ideal application in the approach of the police investigation.

  Indeed, the author explained to me, “the role of a policeman is to discover the truth”: precisely, “Martinism is a gnosis, an inner search for truth, a quest for revelation”.

  It is therefore infinitely more than the end of the story on murders that an investigator who claims to be looking for: it is truly their meaning, since “to find a culprit is to restore disorder”.

• Because "each investigation ends with a ceremony

  in the Martinist circle", underlines the author, for whom this mystique is "a personal encounter".

  If we add the backstage of a society apparently well in all respects that we find in a libertine club between two murders, and macabre stagings in the sumptuous decor of the Gard, we have the ideal ingredients for a passage to the 'screen.

  Christian Dorsan is also finishing writing an adaptation in a mini-series: we bet it should attract the attention of producers before making the beautiful evenings of a public channel!

The essentials in 2 minutes

The plot.

When Guilhem Delarque, a broken police officer, discovers a hanged man above a viaduct in the Gard, his first reaction is not compassion for the apparent suicide, but a smile: he is obliged to call his ex -colleague, Géraldine Muguet.

Let's go for the reformation of their tandem!

Characters.

A brother who has been suffocating his siblings for far too long, a sibling who allows himself to be suffocated far too easily, spouses who disappear far too often, neighbors far too present... but what is happening in the good society of the Gard?

Fortunately, Delarque and Muguet are there!

Places.

Do you know Gard?

Its aqueducts, its typical villages, its cooperative cellars which sell small wines sometimes "bottled at the castle"... its castles, precisely... its libertine clubs... its abandoned dental prosthesis workshops... do we really have to tell you more - and worse ?

The time.

It's not because we are in the 21st century that everything is new!

Mythology has taught us that the worst turpitudes are born in classic heterosexual families, and Tolstoy, that unhappy families are each unhappy in their own way.

And the very contemporary Clavel family, then?

The author.

Before the trilogy of the

, Christian Dorsan, a native of Orsan in the Gard, is the author of intimate novels in which he excels:

,

,

Yes, there is always a Christian Dorsan character with whom we can identify… but beware: in a thriller, you might regret it!

This book was read with

a strong desire to get to know the characters on the screen to put a face and a look on the tandem formed by Muguet and Delarque... and to attend the Martinist oratory contests, where we learn to distinguish synchronicities, life lessons, and police investigation!

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