For this mystery the star of the show is Brittany. From the legends to the countryside to the unique people and the mystery itself is compelling as well. ( )

I picked up 'The Missing Corpse' to read while I spent a few days in Brittany. It was my first visit with Commissaire Dupin and it will be my last. I found myself having the same reaction to this book that I was having to the endless offers of Moules, Oysters, Shrimps and other 'fruits of the sea' that the local restaurants present me with: I can see that people love them but they're not to my taste.

The 'Brittany Mystery Series' is sold as a cosy crime series featuring an eccentric Commissaire and has plots that make full use of the Breton culture.

I can see that 'The Missing Corpse' delivers on all of those promises but it does it in a way that doesn't work for me.

The cosy part works. At the 40% mark where I abandoned the book, two men have been murdered, one of them very violently (the corpse of the other man was still missing when I stopped reading, so I don't know how he died.) but the violence all happened off stage and there is no emotional investment in either of the dead men. Their deaths and the disappearance of one of the corpses are simply elements of an intriguing puzzle that Commissaire Dupin has to solve.

Much of the success of the novel depends on how the reader feels about Commissaire Dupin. If you can see him as an eccentric but passionate and intuitive man with a talent for unearthing the truth, then this book would probably work for you. Unfortunately, I see him as an annoying, undisciplined, emotionally erratic man who follows no methodology, makes very inefficient use of the teams working for him and solves cases by blundering around until he bumps into the solution. I can see he's meant to be charming, maybe even amusing and I know I shouldn't be grinding my teeth as he wanders around aimlessly following his instincts rather than the evidence. I don't dislike the man. He's well-intentioned. He's loyal to his people. He's endlessly curious, He's also very tiring to spend any time with.

The novel delivered a lot of information about Brittany and Breton culture. I found some of it quite interesting, especially as I'm in the middle of this culture at the moment. The style in which this information was delivered didn't work for me. Dupin romanticises Bretons the way some American film directors romanticise the Irish. To me, it feels patronising. Dupin is not a Breton but the members of his team are. He draws on their knowledge of the local culture and history but at the same time is amused by their passions and disdains their beliefs.

Jean-Luc Bannalec sells a version of Brittany that could have 'Tourist Board Approved' stamped across it but doesn't speak to any of the problems and issues that Brittany faces within France. I felt like I was getting the tourist T-shirt and Postcard version of Brittany rather than what I actually see around me.

What finally lead me to abandon the book was a lecture on the oyster industry that extended over several pages. I'm sure it was providing information that will turn out to be central to the mystery but it was done clumsily. Jean-Luc Bannalec tried to make it less static by giving Dupin the data from two people rather than one and by trying to lighten the load by inviting me to be amused at how passionate one of Dupin's team was about the industry and his knowledge of it but that didn't help. It just reminded me how irritating Dupin was.

So, Commissaire Dupin and I are parting ways and I'll never know why the corpse went missing or if they found it again.

Avevo letto l'edizione in francese, e questa traduzione italiana conferma la mia opinione: al di sotto degli episodi precedenti.
Troppe digressioni sulle ostriche, intreccio giallo debole, finale che sta in piedi, ma malamente e anche raccontato male.
Nonostante tutto direi che la sufficienza le merita ancora, anche se per lo più a causa delle prove precedenti. ( )

When I first began with this series, I did not like Georges Dupin at all and forced myself to finish, but the conclusion was good. Also, I usually skip a bit of the narrative, as too often I find Bannalec rather boring & long winded, especially when Dupin is alone with his thoughts.

What I did like was the description of Brittany and the information/history on the oyster culture in Europe.

Synopsis: An older woman discovers a corpse while walking her dog, when Dupin & colleagues arrive the corpse is gone! A second corpse is found by a group of tourists, thrown from atop a hiking trail.

The 2nd corpse is later identifies as a Scotsman who was last seen with a friend. Both have oysters & a Celtic cultural group in common with the oyster farmers in Belon, as well shady dealings.

There is an on-going side investigation, of two business partners, into sand theft and more criminal oyster dealings, with one of the two meeting with a near fatal accident.

This held my interest, but the book could seriously have been shorter. ( )

This is a mystery book, but the mystery of the two corpses fades in importance compared to the storyline, which includes colorful, quirky, and often funny descriptions of the characters and the setting. The books goes extensively into the history and culture of Brittany, the seafood industry which is the main source of commerce, the lifestyle, the folktales, and why the place is even called Brittany. The outcome was that I didn't really care about finding the murderer, I would have been more interested in hanging out with these characters and enjoying their lifestyle. ( )