Buy it here:

Amazon Bookshop

Synopsis:

When Franck gets out after five years in jail, he expects to find the brother he protected with his silence. Instead, waiting for him is his brother Fabien’s girlfriend. Jessica takes him to the gloomy country house where she lives with her cantankerous, hard-drinking parents, her eight-year old daughter – who doesn’t speak, hardly eats, and seems to be carrying a secret much bigger than herself – and a large mastiff dog they all seem to fear.  

Time passes, Fabien doesn’t return, and Franck is increasingly mystified by Jessica’s behaviour, seductive at times, hostile at others. Nonetheless, Franck follows her around on her crazy nocturnal rounds until he finds himself with a gun pointed at his head. It’s the beginning of a crescendo of retaliation in a gang war in which Franck believes he is participating, only to realize he’s merely a sacrificial pawn. 

In the scorching heat of the summer, love and violence, sweetness and blood, will result into an unpredictable ending, one that perhaps only the little girl knew from the start.

Review:

Dogs & Wolves, the newest crime novel by Herve Le Corre to be translated by Howard Curtis and published by Europa Editions, is a story about betrayal, secrets, and murder. Franck spent five years in jail for a robbery that he committed with his brother Fabien. When he is released, he is met by Fabien’s girlfriend Jessica, who says that Fabien is on a job in Spain and for him to come stay with her, her parents, and her neglected young daughter. Before long, Franck starts to learn that Jessica is not always honest (or faithful), and it does not take long before Franck is fully involved in her underworld activities. 

This novel is a slow burn, and the story takes much too long to develop. Franck spends a great deal of the novel drinking beer in the heat, spending time with Jessica’s daughter, Rachel, and lusting after Jessica, following her around like a puppy. The deeper we get into the story, the more we see that none of these characters are good people. In fact all of these characters are people you would never want to associate with in real life. The way that they treat one another, throw around sexist and homophobic slurs, and use violence as a way to get their point across, makes it difficult to feel sorry for the fate of any of them. The main character Franck is the worst human of them all, and though their is a small amount of redemption in the way that he cares about Rachel, Jessica’s daughter, this is such a thin veil of humanity that you know Franck does not have a personality that will allow for him to be any sort of role model to the child. Rachel is the only person we feel any sort of sympathy for because she is neglected, abused, and born into a world that is filled with adults that are nothing but horrible people. 

The writing and translation are good even though there is more time spent on feelings and setting than plot. We are brought along with Franck while he waits for his brother. The wait is long and impatient. We wait with him. The days are long and hot, and we can feel the misery Franck is feeling. Dogs & Wolves suffers from a slow pace for a crime novel, with pages and pages of nothing happening. The characters are strongly written, and even though none of them have a redeeming quality, they are definitely written in a way that evokes strong emotion. I was glad when this novel was finished, and I never want to meet these people again. 

I received this novel as an ARC through Europa Editions in exchange for an honest review.