Syndrome E by Franck Thilliez

by:  Franck Thilliez
published by:  Viking Adult
publish date:  August 16, 2012

Syndrome E tells the story of beleaguered detective Lucie Hennebelle, whose old friend has developed a case of spontaneous blindness after watching an extremely rare—and violent—film from the 1950s. Embedded in the film are subliminal images so unspeakably heinous that Lucie realizes she must get to the bottom of it—especially when nearly everyone who comes into contact with the film starts turning up dead.

I'm going to start off with a tiny bit of a gripe.  Syndrome E is part of a series.  A French crime writer this time got the big American publishing contract.  I'm all for that!  Those European crime writers come up with some seriously messed up...stuff.  But the publishers always pick a book out of the middle of the series.  Why?!?!  Why do that?  Start from the beginning!  They did that to Anne Holt and Jo Nesbo too.  Smack in the middle and now they're going back to the beginning...why didn't they just start at the beginning??

Anyway...on to Syndrome E.  Wow, what a bizarre story.  There's a tape that in itself it really bizarre and creepy, but once it's taken frame by frame and analyzed there are all kinds of even more disturbing images embedded in there.  Lucie and her partner Sharko are determined to figure out who made the tape, why, and who are the girls in the film.  Sixty years later its not an easy task.

Lucie and Sharko end up all over the world trying to solve this mystery.  They story behind the film and why it was made get stranger and stranger as the book goes on.

Its one to add to the list of you like Jo Nesbo or Stephen King.  It's more of a psychological thriller, but it's pretty creepy too.  Definitely something different.