The Killing Tide

Starred review from December 2, 2019
A particularly tough day begins for Commisaire Georges Dupin in Bannalec’s superb fifth Brittany mystery (after 2017’s The Missing Corpse) when a fisherwoman from the Île de Sein is found in a container full of rotting fish with her throat slit. The discovery of two more people with their throats cut—one a dolphin researcher, the other a retired professor—launches a fast-paced investigation that puts perennially seasick Dupin, a former Paris police detective who’s a fish out of water in western Brittany, in headlong pursuit of a killer across the islands off the port of Douarnenez—and that exposes the seamy underside of commercial fishing. The dramatic conclusion leaves Dupin to reflect on the shadowy notions of justice, ambiguous endings, and the many mysteries of Brittany, where Celtic legends and Breton folklore are accepted as matter of fact parts of modern life. Bannelec (the pen name of Jörg Bong) has concocted the perfect blend of police procedural and travelogue.