Laureate of the French Academy, Christophe Ferré is a novelist and playwright. He has written several successful thrillers, most of which were launched exclusively by the Club France Loisirs: The Revelation of Chartres, Mortelle Tentation, The Little Girl of the Lighthouse. The latter is currently being adapted for television and is being released in preview from this historic and popular broadcaster in the landscape of books in France. Ferré’s books are inspired by various facts that hit the headlines. The success of his books testifies to the passion of the French for these sometimes so significant facts, to the point where even the very serious Figaro has just created a team of “news” journalists.
Blood Suns
A family celebration turns into a massacre.
Three dead, one missing.
A survivor … with amnesia.
The mother remains untraceablecorn. For what strange reason?
On a beach on the Côte d’Azur, a young woman wakes up. Her mind clouded, Juliette doesn’t know how she got there. Little by little, her memories resurface: the day before, her mother Flavia celebrated her forty-five years, surrounded by her husband and her children. Then it is the sound of bullets that comes back to him. What happened ? The police tell him the implacable truth: his father, brother and sister were shot dead. No one knows why Juliette survived, or what she was doing on this beach a few miles from the crime scene. Everything accuses Flavia, disappeared without leaving a trace. But what motive would push a mother of a family without history to commit such carnage? Juliette knows it: the truth about this affair promises to be cruel and disturbing. The veil of appearances is torn to reveal the darkest secrets of a seemingly almost perfect family …
This book is inspired by the Dupont de Ligonnès affair. Christophe Ferré’s starting point is always a news item. He takes a close interest in the police investigation, then he builds his own story, with other characters.
Interview with the author.
Opinion Internationale: where do you get inspiration from to write your novels?
Christophe Ferré: All my thrillers are inspired by various facts known to the general public. This is my starting point, I am the only French author to do it systematically, without however telling the story in its entirety. It is a source of inspiration. Example : The Little Girl of the Lighthouse brings to mind the Grégory affair (family conspiracy, accused mother), the Maddie affair (parents suspected of their daughter’s disappearance because of their strange attitude). I help myself by consulting the press, watching documentaries (Let the accused enter and Not elucidated are models of the genre), reading a host of headline-grabbing books.
What could authors / screenwriters bring to judicial inquiries in France? What differences in methods do you see in the French police investigative approach and elsewhere in the world?
The French judicial police, in spite of its men with exceptional qualities, are very bureaucratic and apply finicky procedures which waste a lot of time, I could give dozens of examples. However, to solve some cases, we have to imagine very quickly scenarios that no one has thought of. For this, we could call on screenwriters or crime fiction writers. In France, we do not use people from outside the civil service, unlike in other countries. Behind my desk, I solved cases long before the police.
In your opinion, what explains the general public’s fascination with news items? As for the Dupont de Ligonnès affair, Alexia Daval whose verdict has recently fallen, or the Grégory affair which seems to be relaunched?
In cases like the ones you cite, everyone identifies with certain protagonists, whether they are the guilty parties, the victims or the families of the victims. It’s terrible to say, but the news item reveals the impulses buried in each of us, good or bad. This is why certain various facts fascinate us so much.
The Alexia Daval case, they are the perfect couple, in a postcard village (Gray), a perfect son-in-law adored by all. Except that the latter was a perverse and manipulative liar, and ultimately a killer of immense cruelty, despite his chubby face and crocodile tears. Alexia was strangled before receiving dozens of punches in the face and then Jonathan set her body on fire deep in a forest. We then identify with the grieving family who are living a nightmare that everyone could experience. The fairy tale turned into a horror movie. There is something horrible and fascinating about this affair in the heart of seemingly normal rural France.
The Gregory case is a family plot in peripheral France, a countryside forgotten by globalization, on the verge of economic extinction. A large part of the French have recognized themselves in all these people who suffer and hate each other, especially since the affair is a series with twists and turns that has lasted for decades.
The Dupont de Ligonnès case stages the killing of the traditional French family, the one that has served as a model for the bourgeoisie for centuries. The Nantais or the Versaillais pillar of the parish is sometimes a methodical, cold and manipulative killer, but also the author of a scenario worthy of the greatest novelists. The “Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès” groups on Facebook have tens of thousands of subscribers, more than most politicians!
The confinements have highlighted and worsened the importance of domestic violence, what can you say about it?
During these periods, there was an unprecedented explosion of domestic violence. Women have been mistreated, beaten, raped, murdered by their husbands. We experienced a terrible case in Ambert where three gendarmes were shot dead by a man who wanted to kill his wife, who was a refugee on a roof. The authorities have probably not measured the deleterious effects of confinements decided in the haste. The covid-19 crisis caused the biggest health catastrophe since 1945, it is not only due to the disease, but to its psychological consequences, especially among the tens of thousands of abused women.
Interview by Michel Taube
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