Juste une ombre

by Karine Giebel

Thriller

Pocket - mai 2013

608 pages - 13.95 $

I discovered with pleasure the rising French authors in the polar world. Karine Giebel in part of them: she won several times the price of polar of Marseille and the Cognac and SNCF prices of polar. My forays into the French readings are just as best as possible as they allow me to find back my roots while diving with delight and thrill in a thriller...

4th cover

First, it's a silhouette, one evening in the street ... A face-to-face with death.

Then, it is a presence. By day: at every intersection. The night, by your bedside. Unable to understand, explain, to prove.

Soon, an obsession. Which ruins your career, separates you from your friends, your lover. Makes you crazy. And alone.

Just a shadow. That takes on your life and takes it forever.

You belong to it, it is already too late ...

What I think of it

Here is a special case: we hate as much as we are afraid for Cloe. She's so pedantic, pretentious, cruel, pushy, that initially we want to say "she has it coming" But as you learn to ignore the shell, we discover her secret, we feel compassion for her faults and we're bamboozled by her charm. Alexander also is and as we like Alexander - a broken cop with crazy eyes but a killer smile - we soon find that Cloe does not deserve this shadow. Nobody deserves that. Yet there it is but nobody sees it except Cloe. So you will find in this book some realistic and well written characters and emotions we all felt at one time or another.

As for the plot, what about it? It's powerful enough for us to strongly feel powerlessness. This is mainly a psychological thriller and it's tense, intense, nervous. You think that this is not possible, the shadow will end up making a mistake by leaving a footprint but here is the whole problem: shadows don't leave trace. And then suddenly, BAM! Giebel throws you to the ground. It's so realistic, I thought it speaks from experience. The story is so similar to news items that you can read sometimes. And news items rarely end well...

This book reads like a play, like behind closed doors. The action takes mainly place in three locations: at Alexander's flat, at Cloe's work and at Cloe's flat. As a result, a kind of intimacy is created, we go inside their home like it's ours, making the Shade even more disturbing with its intrusions. There's enough to become paranoid by reading this book! However, beware, this book is not for everyone, it's about a shadow that seeks to destroy women, there are some difficult scenes. I do not want to spoil the book, but rapes are at issue and as some people around me can not bear to read this kind of scene, I prefer to warn you fellow reader.

In a nutshell

A book you'll read in one go, a compelling with (too?) realistic tension story. Characters whose flaws are very credible. A book I highly recommend. I give it 4/5 .

My thought on closing the book: dammit, she's didn't go in for half measures!

Good to know : Her books are translated in Italian, Dutch, Russian et Spanish