7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Vol. 2 in the "Fabio Montale" Trilogy, September 11, 2006
This review is from: Chourmo (Marseilles Trilogy) (Paperback)
Those who haven't read "Total Chaos", the first book in Izzo's Marseille-set trilogy, needn't worry that they are missing crucial information. This second book (whose title is a slang term referring to the slaves who rowed in Roman galleys and is used to express the sense of solidarity felt by those in the slums), picks up the life of Fabio Montale about a year after the events of "Total Chaos" and only refers to them in passing. Since being drummed out of the corrupt Marseille police force following that adventure, Montale has been mostly sipping wine at home while watching the sea, or out fishing on his little boat. This tranquility is broken when his beautiful cousin Gelou, whom he hasn't seen for twenty years, comes seeking his help.
It seems her teenage son has gone missing and probably came to Marseille to meet an Arab girl he became sweet on. Alas, a prologue shows the reader the tragic outcome of this assignation, and it doesn't take Montale long to discover that the boy was shot to death -- possibly in connection with the killing of an exiled Algerian intellectual. Meanwhile a social worker who spent a lot of time in the projects and was a friend of Montale's is killed before his eyes in a drive-by shooting. It's the book's one significant weakness that these two seemingly unrelated victims both happen to have ties to Montale, since this coincidence is what allows the plot to unravel in the manner it does.
As in "Total Chaos", things get very convoluted very quickly as Montale runs around Marseille getting entangled with all kinds of characters. There are racist cops, fundamentalist Algerian immigrants with ties to the civil war back home (the book was originally published in 1996), a cruel junkyard owner, a Vietnamese vixen, a struggling heroin whore, and various mafia bosses. The coincidence noted above puts Montale in the driver's seat, as he's the only person with the access to all these different strata who has the drive and desire to put all the pieces together. With a rather sympathetic police detective backing his play, Montale runs amok, disrupting the plans of several groups of people in his drive to get at the truth.
Like his protagonist, the author was born and raised in the seedy city of Marseille, and watched it turn from a Southern European melting pot to a post-colonial melting pot of 1.5 million people. Like his protagonist, he had a front-row seat (as a journalist) to the major social and economic shifts of the last several decades, and the xenophobia they have engendered. As in "Total Chaos", Izzo conveys a very Gallic sense of disenchantment and fatalism. It's a complicated portrait of a city, loving and nostalgic, yet sad and angry. In that sense, the book works much better as a social portrait of a city than it does as a crime story. I'd really recommend it much more to those with an interest in Southern France or who might be visiting Marseille, than I would to crime buffs. It would also, along with the film Hate, be useful for those seeking to understand the last year's Paris riots.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"We pulled for you when the wind was against us, December 27, 2007
This review is from: Chourmo (Marseilles Trilogy) (Paperback)
and the sails were low. Will you never let us go?" Rudyard Kipling, "Song of the Galley-Slaves"
The title of Jean-Claude Izzo's "Chourmo" is taken from an old Provencal word describing the rowers in Roman galleys. Izzo writes that "In Marseilles, you weren't just from one neighborhood, one project. You were chourmo. In the same galley, rowing! Trying to get out. Together." But the melancholy subtext here is that either by design or fortune (good or bad) all the rowing in the world never gets the characters that inhabit Izzo's world very far from Marseilles. This is not really surprising when you consider that Marseilles never really let Jean-Claude Izzo get away. Izzo was bon in Marseilles in 1945. He died, at age 54, in Marseilles. Chourmo is Volume II in what is known as Izzo's Marseilles Trilogy.
Total Chaos (Marseilles Trilogy) is Volume I;
Solea (Marseilles Trilogy) is Volume III.
"Chourmo" reintroduces us to Fabio Montale, Montale, now retired from the force, is content to listen to his music and work on his cottage overlooking the bay he swam in as a child. But his cousin Gelou, asks him to find her son who snuck out of the house one night to see a girl and who has not returned. Montale next sees an old friend gunned down in a low-income housing project. The rest of the story is devoted to resolving how these two seemingly parallel story lines play out. Along the way we are exposed to the many social forces that shape the nature of crime and punishment in Marseilles. Izzo, looking through the eyes of Montale, takes us into a world of corrupt police and politicians, organized crime, and an immigrant population struggling for acceptance in a world in which they are less than welcome.
As has been noted in other reviews the parallel plot lines and the many secondary characters introduced by Izzo diminish some of the force of the story line. In that sense Volume II was not quite as effective as Volume I in terms of sharpness and clarity. However, Izzo's powerful portrayal of Montale and of Marseilles itself more than made up for any flaws in the storytelling. Montale is powerfully drawn and by Volume II I was `sold' on his character. In the best series the reader can get into the head of the main character and Izzo makes it hard for any reader not to get sucked into viewing the world through Montale's eyes. And Marseilles as portrayed by Izzo is a special place. At the end of the day I think a reader's feeling about Chourmo (and the other books in the trilogy) will depend on whether or not they like the idea of a city playing a central role in a story. It worked for me. Izzo does a remarkably good job of giving the reader a sense of place. You can almost feel the dark streets and smell the aromas of the cafes in the harbor as you read the book.
Chourmo is a good story and the enjoyment of reading it was heightened by Izzo's ability to make the "idea" of Marseilles so central to the story. Recommended. L. Fleisig
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5.0 out of 5 stars
fascinating and shocking, August 26, 2007
This review is from: Chourmo (Marseilles Trilogy) (Paperback)
I did not read the Total Chaos and now I cannot wait to read the two remaining books. Chourmo spoiled me for other books for at least...a couple of days. I cannot live without reading any longer. Wonderful book full of smells of crime, love, food and wine. Good historical background for a present Muslim - French relations. Touchy and the end will knock you down. A must read for anybody loving a good suspense story. So different from the latest US product of the same type.
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