Jorge Zepeda PattersonBesprekingen
Auteur van Milena o el fémur más bello del mundo
Besprekingen
Pedro Páramo en 1954 door Juan Rulfo, (1917-1986)
I think some things may have been lost in translation but generally it was a fun time and I’m still turning over the final pages on my mind.
The narrator, French-Colombian rider Marc Moreau, is approached for help by the head of the police investigation, Commissaire Favre, ostensibly on the grounds that he had been a military policeman before turning professional. But of course Moreau spent most of his time in the army training for amateur cycle races, and he's not very well up on detective work. And besides, there's the small matter of competing in one of the world's toughest sporting events to take up most of his waking hours. But when he has two narrow escapes from attempts on his life, he sees the need to try to work out what's going on before anyone else gets seriously hurt.
Moreau's role in the team is as a domestique, to support and protect the star, his close friend the American rider Steve Panata, who is on his way to his fifth Tour de France win. Although his position means that he's never been allowed so much as a stage-win in his own right, Moreau is an outstanding climber, and he's coming under strong pressure from friends outside the team to move out from Steve's shadow and build a career for himself. One way or the other, he's going to have to betray somebody close to him...
This is perhaps not the most sophisticated of crime stories, but there's an interesting element of moral ambiguity, and the background story of the tactics, politics, and sheer grunt of competition in the Tour is well-developed and very interesting, if not always completely plausible. A necessary and quite workable compromise between a readable story and the dull routine that would probably be all you would get off the course in a fully realistic account.
unter dem Einsatz von Viagra beim Sex mit seiner 50 Jahre
jüngeren Geliebten Milena. Die Edelprostituierte stand
unter dem Schutz des einflussreichen Verlegers, der in
seinem Testament nun seiner Tochter Claudia diese Bürde
überträgt. Auf der Beerdigung kommen die "Blauen", eine
Clique aus Jugendjahren, wieder zusammen und unterstützen
Claudia bei der Suche nach Milena. Tomas übernimmt die
Leitung der renommierten Zeitung El Mundo, Jaime nutzt sein
Sicherheitsunternehmen bei den Recherchen und Amelia,
Vorsitzende der "Linken", hat wertvolle Kontakte in der
Politik. Milena wird gefunden, verschwindet aber wieder,
denn verschiedene Gruppierungen aus dem weltweiten
Organisierten Verbrechen jagen die Kroatin. Sie wurde als
16-Jährige entführt und zur Prostitution gezwungen. Bei
ihrem Aufstieg im Milieu hat sie wertvolle Daten gesammelt,
die jede Partei in diesem Krieg haben will. Im spanischen
Sprachraum ist der hochkarätige Thriller bereits ein
Bestseller. Exzellent recherchiert, werden die Machenschaften des Frauenhandels angeprangert.
Even if you don’t know much about cycling, you will have heard of the Tour de France, possibly the toughest gig in any sport. This murder-mystery is set during those torrid 3 weeks as strange accidents befall some of the competitors, and as events take on a more murderous intent the web of intrigue and fear widens. At the start of the race our main character and narrator, Marc Moreau – a French-Colombian domestique to the great Steve Panata from the US in team Fonar – is approached by Inspector Favre of the French police and is asked to investigate the events from within the peloton, his reason being that before becoming a professional cyclist Moreau worked in a police unit during his time in the military.
The book progresses over the three-week period of le Tour, but also skips back in time to show the background of the main friendship between Moreau and Panata, and the developing relationship between Moreau and his girlfriend Fiona, who works for the sport’s governing body, the UCI. As the race goes on various individuals are targeted, including Moreau himself, and he and others have to try and solve the case before the race reaches Paris. Moreau works his way through several theories, and the list of suspects is slowly whittled down – but will he or Favre solve it before a final act of violence? And just who will win the biggest prize of all?
For fans of cycling this will tickle your fancy. But for general fans of a whodunnit/mystery this should also appeal. It has a feel of a locked-room mystery; there are only so many suspects, and the hotels are closely guarded. The clues are there – it all gets a little complicated, however – and the ending has a nice twist to it that leaves the book dangling.
I enjoyed this, but I’m a huge cycling fan so I was probably always going to like it. This is very much a book about people living in a bubble, devoting their entire efforts on just one thing. What you don’t get are long descriptions of towns and scenery as the race works its way around France – and in some ways this is fine, because that’s exactly the point of view of the cyclist. The main characters have enough background story to them to flesh them out, while the lesser characters are just two-dimensional and play a bit-part. So, all in all, a fun take on a murder-mystery that probably ticks enough boxes for me to award it the green points jersey: 3.5 stars, which I’ll round up to 4 cos, what the heck, its about le Tour.
Onze site gebruikt cookies om diensten te leveren, prestaties te verbeteren, voor analyse en (indien je niet ingelogd bent) voor advertenties. Door LibraryThing te gebruiken erken je dat je onze Servicevoorwaarden en Privacybeleid gelezen en begrepen hebt. Je gebruik van de site en diensten is onderhevig aan dit beleid en deze voorwaarden.