Slinger i valsen på Quai de Javel

This instalment takes private eye Nestor Burma into the 15th arrondissement. The long-established industrial district of Javel on the bank of the Seine became famous a couple of centuries ago for the production of hypochlorite bleach, still called "Eau de Javel" in everyday French. By Nestor

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Burma's time it was better-known as the site of André Citroën's car factory, also now long-gone...

Against his better judgment, Nestor takes on some unpaid work, when the pregnant girlfriend of his onetime protégé Delessy asks him to find her missing partner. His investigation takes him into the car factory and various local bars, and a cast of Algerian gangsters and/or freedom-fighters as well as the obligatory beautiful women, who confusingly both use the same unusual perfume, although only one of them is required by the dictates of the plot to bash Nestor on the head with a blunt instrument. There's also a famous clairvoyante, who doubles as an illegal abortionist. Good fun for all the family, as usual, and plenty of linguistic fireworks, although there is perhaps a slightly darker overall tone than usual: Nestor seems to be getting older and more convinced of the fundamental nastiness of life.

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