Review: Camille

Camille by Pierre Lemaitre
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Camille is a fitting end to Lamaitre's Verhoeven triology. Once again, Detective Camille Verhoeven finds himself drawn into a case that is intensely personal. When the first woman he's dated since his wife's death is brutally attacked during a daring jewelry store heist and one of the robbers makes an attempt on her life, Verhoeven lies to his supervisor to get himself assigned to the case. With echoes of the past crashing in on him and the ripples of his dishonesty threatening his job, Verhoeven is driven to protect this new love not matter what it costs him.

Lemaitre's conclusion to the Verhoeven series is delicately crafted. Each layer of the case is folded carefully upon the next. As with the previous books, Lamaitre employs a dual narrative, this time letting the reader see directly into the antagonist’s mind as he cuts a bloody path through Verhoeven's life. The tension of their cat and mouse game is heightened by the ever increasing uncertainty about which one of them is actually the cat. The case itself grows satisfyingly complicated as the clues and misdirections emerge in dribs and drabs.

Camille hooks you with the explosive opening, but then settles in for a slow build. The simmer builds as Lamaitre ratchets up the tension with each passing chapter, until that final, desperate, moment when everything has to come to a head.

A tortured protagonist fighting his past, a brutally methodical criminal with unknown motives, and a gripping plot that gradually peels back like the layers of an onion make this a compelling read.


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