Just who exactly is Henri Pick and did he write The Last Hours of a Love Affair?
Henri Pick – the blurb
In the small town of Crozon in Brittany, a library houses manuscripts that were rejected for publication: the faded dreams of aspiring writers. Visiting while on holiday, young editor Delphine Despero is thrilled to discover a novel so powerful that she feels compelled to bring it back to Paris to publish it.
The book is a sensation, prompting fevered interest in the identity of its author – apparently one Henri Pick, a now-deceased pizza chef from Crozon. Sceptics cry that the whole thing is a hoax: how could this man have written such a masterpiece? An obstinate journalist, Jean-Michel Rouche, heads to Brittany to investigate.
A mystery is it not?
I’m on a bit of a roll with French themed books at the minute and next in the pile was The Mystery of Henri Pick. I picked it (no pun intended) as I hadn’t read a crime book for a while and it reminded me of The Accident on the A35 a book also set in France and very good. But whist the inside cover describes it as a ‘fast paced comic mystery’ I found it anything but.
You’re going to assume that I therefore didn’t like the book which would be wrong. The idea of a library of rejected books was genius. The relationships were expertly depicted and I loved the writing style. Josephine and how the end of her marriage consumed her I thought particularly well written. The only problem was it wasn’t really a mystery in the Agatha Christie kind of way. There were twists but they were gentile, as was the pace. I almost find myself unable to categorise it as a crime/thriller yet at it’s heart is a mystery. Dare I call it literary crime? Who knows! Who cares because overall it is good and I enjoyed it.
