3 thrillers that renew the codes of the genre: our selection

“The Proofs of My Innocence” by Jonathan Coe

Ed. Gallimard, 480 p. ; €24.

Now the great British novelist Jonathan Coe is trying his hand at “cozy crime” (the “cozy” style detective novel)! Or rather that he delegates the task to his heroine, young Phyl, who wants to launch herself into this successful genre. So far, she has only found a poorly paid job.

She lives with her parents who are wondering, with their friend Christopher, about the rise of the far right during the enthronement of Prime Minister Liz Truss… The plots intertwine, oscillating between the “campus novel” and autofiction, while a criminal, literary and political enigma unfolds before the eyes of a gluttonous investigator, a mixture of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple…

In this mise en abyme, satire rubs shoulders with the denunciation of social injustices, and Coe finds the vein of his first success, English will. We sometimes get a little lost but we still want to know, in the end, who killed! While being challenged by this picture of a Great Britain undermined by nauseating networks.

Our opinion: PPP