It’s the event of the week, even the month. Polar Quays celebrates its 20th anniversary! Twenty years of passion, twenty years of attraction. Not a single great one of his kind has not flocked from all over the world to the banks of the Rhône and the Saône. Rebelote, of course, on this anniversary date, from April 5 to 7: there are 135 authors coming to meet the Lyon public, ever more numerous year after year (there were 90,000 in 2023), through debates, signing sessions and literary cruises between the Palais de la Bourse, the Town Hall and the Trinity Chapel. The Lumière Institute is also getting in tune, which broadcasts, at the suggestion of the authors, some anthology films like The firmby Sydney Pollack, Goodbye Chickenby Pierre Granier-Deferre, Shutter Island, by Martin Scorsese or even Suddenly last summerby Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
John Grisham, Jo Nesbø, Donna Leon, Maxime Chattam, Val McDermid, Dennis Lehane, Valerio Varesi Terry Hayes, Jørn Lier Horst, Marion Brunet, Hervé Le Corre, DOA, Dominique Manotti, Michel Bussi, Tim Willocks, Abir Mukherjee, Ragnar Jónasson and Katrín Jakobsdóttir, Peter May, Patricia Melo, Piergiorgio Pulixi, Guillaume Musso, Ian Manook, Karine Giebel, Bernard Minier, Aro Sainz De La Maz, etc., etc. Excuse me a little. For our part, you will find in the pages of The Express or (and) on his site very laudatory articles on the new novels of the latter two.
For Louis-Henri de La RochefoucauldThe Erased (XO Editions), 12th novel by the former customs inspector, once again demonstrates with finesse the upheavals of Spanish society. He also recalls that for writing The Erased and give weapons to your favorite character, Lucia Guerrero, investigator of the UCO (the Unidad Central Operativa, the research section of the Spanish Civil Guard), Minier went to Madrid to meet the colonel head of the UCO and various geeks from the department against cybercrime, before travel throughout Galicia, notably the village of Cuenca. Let’s stay in Spain, but on the Barcelona side this time. Similar enthusiasm, from our journalist Bertrand Bouard, for the latest opus by Aro Sainz De La Maza, Malart (Actes Sud), which welcomes the return of Catalonia police inspector Milo Malart even if he is in very bad trouble.
But it’s not just Spain, as Agnès Laurent confirms to us in her investigation dedicated to the (eternal?) heroes of thrillers. Thus the Italian Valerio Varesi, who published The Lizard Strategy at Agullo on April 11, and explains to us how his commissioner Soneri was born more than twenty-five years ago: “As a journalist, I had covered the story of a missing family and I wanted to make a book about it . Investigation was the best way. And to highlight the context, I wanted a normal police officer, without preconceived ideas. Like Maigret. Not like in the Anglo-Saxon tradition like Agatha Christie.” QED! In this in-depth investigation, there is also the question of Niko Tackian, Donna Leon, Piergiorgio Pulixi, Dennis Lehane… all present in our pages, and in Lyon, of course.
Finally, we recommend reading the new book by François Rivière, a great specialist in noir if ever there was one, On assassination considered a women’s affair (Calmann-Lévy), a history of crime fiction through the “queens of crime”, and the meetings of the editor, biographer and novelists with some of them – Patricia Highsmith, PD James and especially Ruth Rendell.
For further information: the Quais du polar program on the festival website.