Corsica to the last drop of blood – Liberation

2023-04-27 12:16:00

With “Roches de sang”, which intertwines past and present, child trafficking and yacht robberies in Corsica, Olivier Bal gives us a twilight western full of twists and turns.

1993, in the Corsican maquis, a man on the run, wounded, escapes in extremis from his pursuers. But his brother Theo is still at their mercy. We must rescue him. So, after a last look at the panorama of light and stone that surrounds it; in the heart of this island he so loved, so hated; before swooping down on his enemies armed with his only knife, Ange has one final thought: it’s a good day to die…

Mysteries of the international underworld

Of our time. In the ultra-secure apartment of a tower in London, a Serbian billionaire, big boss of the international mafia is found murdered. In letters of blood on a bay window, these few words «May my wound be mortal». May my wound be mortal. In the penthouse full of works of art, only one showcase was emptied, it contained a simple knife…

Marie Jansen, the Europol inspector who was about to bring down the tycoon, will she be able to connect these two stories? What are the connections between the mysteries of the international underworld, child trafficking and yacht robberies in Corsica more than thirty years ago? Who is the murderer determined to dispense justice instead of the police? And why is she, herself, so troubled by this affair…

Theatrical twists

Olivier Bal’s latest novel (we enjoyed last summer his previous thriller Beware of Angels) blood rocks is a superb twilight western. A strong and tragic book intertwining (classic process) two stories. Past and present. Which inexorably come together. But beyond the plot, what makes the strength of the story is the small group of friends – Dumé the good-natured giant, Fred the Moroccan, Jacques the “mythomaniac” – gravitating around Ange and Théo, the sons of Orso. The one nicknamed the Ogre, the founder of the Mistral clan, one of the worst mafiosi on the island, found murdered a few months before the start of the action. A group of friends doing the 400 blows, carefree, violent; drunk alcohol, speed and freedom. Ready for all the madness, all the dangers, all the violence. Corsican to the last drop of their blood, prisoners of these absurd codes made of vendettas and silences, revenge and “honor”; hostages of this “a family that has caused so much bloodshed that we have come to believe that our hands will forever be stained red”.

Multiplying twists, false leads and twists, blood rocks (which avoids in passing the overflow of clichés) paints the portrait of a Corsica that Olivier Bal qualifies as “country of heart” and that he has paced up and down to set the stage for his plot and collect the legends. With in the end, this question haunting its heroes (and their author?). Can we escape our destiny? Is redemption possible? A beautiful personal novel.

blood rocks by Olivier Bal, XO editions, 476 pp., 21.90 euros.