10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Superb Novel Noir, December 10, 2004
Author Jean-Christophe Grange has come up with a real page-turner in "The Empire Of The Wolves," his fourth book. This novel noir is a terrific suspense thriller which delves into contemporary Turkish politics, exploited Turkish immigrant workers in Europe, an up close and personal look at the French police system, neurological research and experimentation, plastic surgery, serial killers, amnesia, and memory distortion. Grange, a former reporter, demonstrates his journalistic background with his attention to detail and the depth of his research. The plot is somewhat reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock's work. It features a woman with severe memory problems and bizarre scientific experimentation with the human brain. A fast-paced narrative, quick, accurate character sketches, very descriptive, almost graphic prose, and offbeat settings add to the novel's drama and uniqueness.
Anna Helms, a lovely Parisian woman and wife of a senior police official, has been having serious neurological problems. She experiences temporary loss of memory, hallucinations and intense panic attacks. Sometimes she fails to recognize her own husband, and at others she feels she knows people she has never met. Both her neurologist, (a shady character), and her husband believe Anna may have a brain lesion. However, Anna will not allow them to take cortical tissue from her brain for a biopsy. She slowly begins to piece her life together, the parts she can recall, and nothing adds up. As she searches for her identity, Anna becomes more suspicious. Finally, she seeks alternate medical help.
Simultaneously, in the same city, a vicious serial murderer is at work terrorizing the Turkish immigrant population. Three corpses have been discovered, all redheaded Turkish females, all workers from the same sweatshop, all brutally disfigured. Two French police detectives are at work on the case. Paul Nerteaux, is a good cop, dedicated, who has a real vocation for detective work. He brings a renegade cop back from retirement to assist with this case. Schiffer, called "The Cipher" or "Mr. Steel," has broken all the rules too many times to count. However, he has an in-depth knowledge of Paris' Turkish community. They discover that "The Gray Wolves," an extreme right-wing, Turkish nationalist group may be behind the killings. All the twisting, turning points of the story converge, explosively, in the brooding nighttime streets of Paris and the winding walkways of Istanbul.
Grange's writing is spare and superb. His characters are all unusual, even the dead ones - the victims. And most have backgrounds steeped in violence. Yet Grange doesn't allow his readers to acclimate to the bloodshed or the brutality. The descriptions of the murders are quite graphic, so this is not a book for the faint-of-heart. Some of the scenes are haunting, others nightmarish. And the ambiance is dark, murky, almost surreal at times. Overall, I am so impressed by "The Empire Of The Wolves" that I plan to look for some of the author's other titles. Highly recommended.
JANA
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great book and a great translation., September 18, 2004
This intricate and beautifully written story takes you on a wild ride. Mr. Grange doesn't disappoint. He weaves a tale that is absolutely wonderful, terrifying and shocking. The translation from the French is absolutely flawless and keeps it's integrity. Fantasique! This intricate and beautifully written story takes you on a wild ride. Mr. Grange doesn't disappoint. He weaves a tale that is absolutely wonderful, terrifying and shocking. The translation from the French is absolutely flawless and keeps it's integrity. Fantasique!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Story Dark as Night, Darker, January 25, 2010
This review is from: The Empire of the Wolves: A Novel (Paperback)
Anna Heymes, wife of Laurent Heymes, a high level French police officer, gets terrifying panic attacks, hallucinations too. She doesn't believe she is who she is supposed to be. She suspects her face has been changed with plastic surgery and she believes her memory has been manufactured. She comes to believe she is someone's creation and she wants to know why.
And even as she is wondering, two Parisian policemen, one honorable and one not, investigate the horrific slaying of three illegal female Turkish workers who have had their faces disfigured. Anne is being pursued by the killers, a Turkish fascist group called the Grey Wolves, who are a paramilitary organization founded as an anti-communist group who now do covert ops for the government, assassinating Armenian and Kurdish leaders for the secret service, while working as debt collectors and drug runners for the Mafia.
And throughout this story we follow the investigation of those two policemen, Jean-Louis Schiffer, a bitter and brutal man who is a specialist in the Turkish community and Paul Nerteaux, a decent cop who requested Schirffer's help on the case. Schiffer sees a Mafia connection that involves people smuggling, Turkish immigrants, some of them who worked as seamstresses in underground shops, seamstresses with look-alike faces.
This is a dark story that changes course just when you think you've figured out where it's going. It is an absorbing and maybe even what one might call a thinking person's thriller. I really loved it.
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