Lorraine Connection [Paperback]

Lorraine Connection has a complex plot taking in insider trading and corruption in a two-bit electronics factory owned by a much larger company that appears to be using it solely to avoid taxes. I didn't properly take in the stock-exchange stuff until I was halfway in - a mistake.

The novel begins in the factory where the women sit at a moving belt on which they press solder on pre-marked parts as they roll along. Then suddenly the electrics surge and a young pregnant worker is thrown to the floor. This sparks an outcry among the workers as the woman is carried off in an ambulance and everyone is told to get back to work. Not unnaturally they refuse and down-tools. Their protest spreads to the rest of the factory very quickly and the workers rush to the gates to prevent three heavily laden lorries from entering. It becomes a lock-in and the workers try to debate their next move.

From a simple Union-led protest events escalate to a serious fire, and to several deaths as the parent company gets involved in trying to cover-up corruption. I found it a good read, but very complex. There were a lot of characters in this and I had some difficulty sorting them out in my head. I was most interested in the people on the bottom of the pile, like Rolande, in trouble for striking the head of HR across the face as he demonstrated his callous disregard for the injured woman. I sometimes found this novel hard to like, given the extremes of violence and the ugly imposition on a helpless, dying old woman, among others. Moments like this one recurred too often, but in the name of realism, I suppose it comes with the genre.

"Warning. This is a novel. Everything is true and everything is false". This laconic prologue sets the tone for this marvellously sophisticated, strong thriller, set in a town (I think fictional) called Pondage in Lorraine, northern France. Previously the engine of the country via its iron and steel works, the region has fallen into hard times, now revived somewhat by the Daewoo cathode-ray factory which attracts millions in EU subsidies and is a major local employer. There is something not right about the factory, though. We first see it from the perspective of the workers, with two horrible assembly-line accidents, an unfair dismissal and the discovery by the workforce that its long-overdue bonuses will not be paid for many more months. The result of these provocations is a flash strike, brilliantly described, which ends in dangerous chaos.

The action gradually broadens out from these small beginnings into a huge network of the connections alluded to in the title of the book. The local economy, the police investigation of the strike, the privatisation of `Thomson' (France's largest military-electronics concern), the Korean methods of doing business, and the heart of the country's government itself are all gradually revealed to have their places in this grimly corrupt, venal society in which financial, violent and indeed any crimes are entrenched at all scales, from the small to the institutional, abetted at all levels.

As well as this superb plotting and rising to the challenge of making her cruel world utterly believable, Manotti tells a great human story, focusing on some of the workers and the fallout they experience in the weeks after the strike, as well as on Charles Montoya, a failed ex-cop who is sent to Pondage by one of the interested parties in the Thomson buy-out to find out what is going on. Montoya's arrival and quick discoveries spark a burst of violent responses, one of them in particular very tragic.

Manotti has written an unflinching, knowledgeable and tough book, convincingly cynical about the way businesses and countries are run (nobody reading it could be surprised about the current financial meltdown in Europe). She is extremely good at depicting the adaptations individuals make to this world in which they find themselves, in particular the workers of North African origin. The combination of passion, politics and sheer ruthlessness that runs through all walks of life is confidently and persuasively presented. Although there is little to be happy about by the end of the book, the author provides a glimmer of light in one character, who cleverly manipulates the convoluted situation to win (one hopes) a better life elsewhere. A perfect crime novel, so well written and beautifully translated, all within 200 pages.

I started reading this book because I was given it, and I agonised over whether it was worth the £4 on Kindle. Probably not is the answer in my opinion. It was just a lot more convenient to read on Kindle, otherwise I wouldn't have done.

If you like intellectually written French political thrillers, then this may well be for you. I found this a bit impenetrable to get started with - too many characters and too many unfamiliar situations in extravagant detail. Once I got the middle I had to re-cap to make sure I understood everything correctly. THen I was really into the book - the second half went very quickly!

Ultimately though, it ended all too quickly. It's like the ideas for the storyline ran outtowards the end, and so to the glorious detail from other sections. It left me feeling a little diappointed, but has broadened my horizons a little.