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Phoenix Paperbacks, June 2006
Reviewed by Sally Roddom
GREY SOULS is a prime example of not judging a book by its cover. This
story will stay with you for a long time after you finish reading it. The
setting is a small town in Northern France at the tail end of the First
World War, 1917. Battles are still being fought in the trenches, within
sight and sound of the town. Most of the men in the town are not fighting,
as they are needed in the local factory.
One cold winter morning the residents discover there is a worse atrocity
occurring than those on the battlefields. The ten year old daughter of the
local innkeeper is found strangled and dumped in the canal. Suspicion
quickly falls on two deserters who are picked up near the town. A quick
kangaroo court ensures their guilt, and their sentencing, and subsequent
punishment, is brutal and swift.
The story is narrated by a local policeman, who, twenty years later,
starts to put together what actually happened. Not present at the trial,
as he was at the bedside of his dying wife, he has lingering doubts that
justice was done and wants to set the record straight for his own peace of
mind.
Translated from French by Adriana Hunter, the story starts off very
slowly; it is too deep, too unclear, and too poetical. Gradually it
becomes a page-turning whodunit producing emotions that stayed with me
long after the book was put down. Mud, mists and misery each play a major
role in creating the atmosphere of the book. The characters are not just
words on pages, they are real people fleshed out by descriptions. This is
a short book – but not a short story.
Aug 2006 review originally published on Murder & Mayhem
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