Noir.

Pauvert, Olivier (author).

A man stumbles upon a horrific murder and is arrested for it. The police van crashes and he dies. He returns to Earth as an “In-Between,” occupying another man’s body, to solve the crime. Twelve years have passed. His daughter has died, and his wife is with another man. Worse, France is under the control of the far-right National Party. Whites rule, blond is in fashion, and nonwhites suffer brutal restrictions. Children are strangely absent from the streets. The man’s violent journey takes him across France, into the past, and deep into himself—and, ultimately, to the heart of an almost unimaginably sinister conspiracy. Pauvert explores responsibility for and responses to totalitarianism while keeping the reader in breathless suspense. Making comparisons to this highly original novel seems unfair, but readers may recall such diverse works as Huxley’s Brave New World, Camus’ The Stranger, Godard’s film Alphaville, P. D. James’ Children of Men, and much of J. G. Ballard’s oeuvre. A powerful and promising debut, marred only by Pauvert’s tendency to explain what he’s quite capably shown.