Archives par mot-clé : thriller

Une idée de cadeau

Tout ça pour vous dire que l’édition française de « Commissioner B. goes south »* est téléchargeable depuis hier sous le titre « B. comme Bongarçon ». Encore sous le coup de l’émotion je me contenterai pour l’instant de vous balancer quelques lignes à sniffer gratos ↓

Concilier respect de l’environnement et développement de l’activité économique est un double objectif aussi louable que voué à l’échec. La zone industrielle de Rochebourg en était la preuve. Quelques cerisiers du Japon anorexiques et autant de troènes gruyérisés tentaient en vain de séparer les hangars, entrepôts et bâtiments à l’abri desquels on assemblait, peignait, réparait des trucs et des machins. Concession ultime à la végétalisation urbaine, le « Garage Automobile A. Pype SARL » et ses 15 tonnes de charpente métallique, sa couverture multicouche et son bardage double peau en tôles nervurées essayait de faire survivre une bande gazonnée le long de sa clôture.

Le commissaire Brieuc Bongarçon, 3ème circonscription de sécurité publique de Port-Léon, franchit le portail au pas et trouva facilement une place sur le parking visiteurs. Avant même de détacher sa ceinture, son passager ajusta l’espèce de casquette en skaï doublée fourrure synthétique qui, dans ses rêves, lui donnait un look « aviateur de la 2ème guerre mondiale ». En ce début d’après-midi hivernal balayé par un petit vent d’est vicelard, le réchauffement climatique n’était pas au rendez-vous et le lieutenant Castagna était fragile des oreilles.

Négligeant le hall d’exposition, quoique le commissaire commençât à songer sérieusement (et non sans une certaine mélancolie) à remplacer sa bonne vieille Audi A4, les deux flics se dirigèrent vers l’entrée du maous atelier. La porte coulissante, haute d’au moins cinq mètres était entrouverte. Casta risqua un oeil à l’intérieur. Pour s’entendre dire que le garage était fermé le lundi.

Bongarçon prit la relève : « Même pour deux braves fonctionnaires de police qui se les gèlent?

– Ah ok ! J’arrive. » Le gros type en salopette vert bouteille marbrée de cambouis et d’huile de moteur sortit de sous le pont élévateur, remisa la clé à pipe dans sa poche ventrale et s’avança à découvert en s’essuyant les pognes dans un vieux « marcel » déchiré reconverti en essuie-mains, avant de le rouler en boule et le balancer sur le premier établi à portée. Arrivé à hauteur de ses visiteurs, il leur tendit un poignet à peine plus clair que le bouquet de francforts endeuillées qui lui servait de main droite.

B. s’en empara sans faire la chochotte, « Alain Pype ?

– Si seulement ! Nan, moi c’est Nico. Nicolas Bois, son chef d’atelier. Le jour où vous verrez M’sieur Alain mettre les mains dans le cambouis… Vous venez pour la « Mondéo » ?

– Tout juste. Je suis le commissaire Bongarçon et voici le lieutenant Castagna.

Nico Bois arborait une cinquantaine bien nourrie. Sa gestion de l’espace évoquait celle d’un plantigrade en quête de miel. Il précéda ses visiteurs au fond de l’atelier, fermé par le frère jumeau du panneau coulissant de l’entrée.

 

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Fnac et Fnac Kobo devraient se réveiller d’ici 1 jour ou 2 avec le format Epub.

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Thai break

Watch out for that ICE, Joe! You’re talking too much! You’re lucky to be just another awesome character in an even more awesome book by F.Y. Richard ↓

He was genuinely pleased to see Joe. He knew a good guy when he saw one. And Joe’s cooking was definitely worth the trip. Now the fact that Amandine’s former student’s family restaurant was located at the corner of Jacques Dorset Boulevard and « massage alley » also played a part. He waited for the Khao Niao Ma Mouang, a dessert that Joe mastered to perfection, before letting his “work commitments” resurface. As the restaurant owner refilled his cup for the umpteenth time, he pushed forward his first pawn: “By the way, Joe, although I only followed the case from afar, I understand that you lost a neighbor  last year? A pity, really! After this sumptuous meal, a digestive massage at the Phuket Sun would have been very welcome!”

That was a rather heavy pawn, to be sure! Momentarily taken aback, Joe didn’t shut himself off like a Bangkok oyster. Instead, he chose to bounce back. “A digestive massage!  Commissioner sir! I have the weakness of thinking that my cooking rivals the lightness of a hummingbird alighting on a frangipani flower!” Then, in a more serious tone: “Regarding the Phuket Sun, what can I say except that you can’t hide an elephant’s corpse under a water lily leaf? Everyone here knew that sooner or later it would end this way. If Frémaux Street has such a bad reputation, it’s because some of my fellow citizens…” Joe paused. Wasn’t he straying a little too far from the code of silence that was de rigueur in his profession? His voice dropped to a whisper. “…Encouraged in their abuses, it has to be said, by…” Now he was about to criticize the inhabitants of his adopted country!

B., not at all shocked—quite the contrary—gave him a hand. “…By local perverts. Honourable scum, let’s not mince words, my dear Joe!”

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Nobody’s perfect

A pair of boobs like Ingrid’s didn’t come in every bra! Too bad her older brother was a Gendarmerie officer! She had reassured him right away, though:

“There’s a gendarme and a gendarme. Oscar doesn’t always confide in me, but I know he’s, well, broad-minded. You need to be broad-minded when you have expensive tastes! You, for example, if you want to keep a chick like me…”

“Melons like yours you mean? ‘Oscar’! What a name. What got into your parents?”

“I’m sorry, but ‘Achilles’…”

“That was my grandfather’s name. He was an artist. He taught me to pick my first locks. He just shouldn’t have been a boozer, that’s all.”

“You mean your gramps, his heel was his liver?”

“?”

Achilles was better at burglary than general knowledge. Ingrid had to explain to him that the ancient Greeks—he didn’t want to hear about the modern ones—celebrated a guy by the name of Achilles. “A kind of Marvel superhero, as it were. When she’d plunged him into the Styx, a river that made local bathers immortal (provided they were completely immersed, his mother had had no choice but to hold him by the heel.”

“As long as she didn’t hold him by his willy…” In addition to her legendary breasts, Achilles found it flattering to sleep with an intellectual. Not to mention that over the years, his collaboration with her Oscar of a brother had proved more than fruitful for both. At first, of course, Oscar had been discreet about his extra activities at the barracks. But between brothers-in-law or almost, sooner or later, secrets come out. “You’re a broad-minded gendarme, I’m a thief who’s anything but ungrateful. Why not explore the coincidence in our respective best interests?”

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The grave is plain and simple. The natural stone slab is beginning to take on a patina, with greening at the corners. In the center of the rectangular headstone erected perpendicular to the slab, a name is engraved in capital letters: “PALMER”. At the very bottom of the headstone, in smaller letters, on the left reads: “Orpah 1967 – 2010” and on the right: “Jethro 1929 – 2012”. Head bowed, eyes closed, fingers intertwined at stomach level, Ohad recites a short prayer in an almost inaudible voice, of which B., standing slightly back, can only grasp the conclusion. “He’s not here; he’s risen, just as he said he would ”. Then he turns to the cop: “Are your parents still with you, Commissioner?”

“No, they ‘re not.” B.’s eyes linger on the inscriptions at the bottom of the stele.

“She was much younger than him, is that what you’re thinking?”

 

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Commissioner B.’s Christmas dream

Hey, Juchremans! Russia’s attacks on Ukraine are ramping up, Israel continues to “defend” itself by annexing the West Bank, under the tender although (ever so)slightly disapproving gaze of its genocide partner, itself closely monitored by the BMW team, world’s fossil fuel emissions rise and rise but, thank God, Kim Kardashian’s shapewear brand Skims have reached their all time best, hitting $5bn valuation!

Meanwhile, Commissioner B. has had a strange Christmas dream…

*     *     *

That Christmas morning, Commissioner B. had an excuse for feeling sluggish. Two, in fact. The first, purely metabolic, was the empty bottle of “Teeling Brabazon Bottling Series 1” sitting on the coffee table next to an empty glass. As a rule he didn’t drink much but, coming home last night, he needed to get rid of the smell of disinfectant and hospital medicine that Dr. Doux and… “Hot Lips” (see second excuse) had generously passed along to him in Edelman’s overheated office.

The second excuse was the relentless flashbacks of a mind-boggling Christmas dream. A dream inspired by one of his father’s favorite movies, a masterpiece of anti-army dark humor that he himself had discovered with gleeful delight years after its release: “M*A*S*H.” In his remake, the scene where O’Houlihan, the psycho-rigid nurse, ends up getting laid by major Frank Burns (“Frank! Kiss my burning lips!”) took place in the straw of a nativity scene! With him in the role of “Frank Melchior » and Janique Goulard as “Hot Lips.” “Gaspard” Edelman and “Balthazar” Doux didn’t miss a thing, the bastards! They even encouraged him to honor harder and harder the cheeky girl, whose cries of recognition filled the sacred stable.

However, at one point, he had had doubts about the real meaning of his partner’s increasingly loud display of emotion. “Hot Lips” was desperately waving an arm toward the baby Jesus, whose face was turning blue. The divine infant was choking! So much so that, sacrificing the promise of an orgasm she had been eagerly anticipating a second earlier, Janique “Hot Lips” Goulard had energetically pushed him away and rushed to the rescue of the Son of God. Grabbing Baby Jesus by the feet she had shaken Him vigorously, so that He would spit out the indigestible pacifier. That was when it had become obvious that the Sacred Baby was wearing soccer cleats…

 

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