Review: Dissolute Young Men Loose in Breton
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 14, 2014
I enjoy a good “over-educated, amoral, young men commit crimes” novel, and this one doesn’t disappoint. Both the point-of-view character, Nicolas, and his friend, Estrade, have little-to-no scruples about anything they do, be it seducing a neighbor’s wife, stealing from nuns, or committing murder.Set in a community of British ex-pats in the Brittany region of France, Nicolas Keszthelyi, is an antiques dealer of dubious legality. On a visit to a church, he spots a valuable item that he immediately covets, and sets out to steal. He is staying with an acquaintance that he knows as Estrade, a London crook, now going by another name. Nicolas enlists Estrade in his quest to steal the item, which is never identified.  A British police woman, working in conjunction with the French police, suspects Estrade might be involved in a series of house break-ins in which the owners are tied up and forced to give over their credit card information. The cat-and-mouse game between these three forms the catalyst for the letter Nicolas writes to her, which is the narrative-style of the story.The book is a little overlong, and has too many “scenes with the locals” that don’t advance the story. It also seems oddly formatted, with dialogue and narrative run together in a way that sometimes makes it hard to follow who is speaking. For the most part, it is well edited, though there are a couple of typos and Joan Jetson is misidentified as Jane Jetson. The story teeters to farce with the second murder, and the two versions of what happens between Estrade and the policewoman at Estrade’s house is sort of a cheap trick. Still, this is an ambitious novel and a fun read.I received a copy of this book in return for an honest review.