Blood of ink in Marrakech is the second investigation by detective Gabrielle Kaplan, the feminine Nestor Burma of Morocco in the 1950s. An exotic and instructive novel.
© Points editions
We were able to discover the investigations of Gabrielle Kaplan with Twilight in Casablancaenchanted by the scent old school of these adventures of a private detective from the 1950s in Morocco: a sort of feminine Nestor Burma. The author Melvina Master was born in 66 in Casa and obviously this city and this era are close to her heart: we go from discovery to surprise about this country, this region and this little-known period. It is therefore with great pleasure that we find the detective Gabrielle Kaplan for a second episode: Blood of ink in Marrakech.
It is a detective novel designed to provide a change of scenery, to entertain but also to educate. Melvina Master does not seek to scare us, nor to confuse us: its detective intrigues rather serve as a pretext for a meticulous description of the city, its inhabitants and especially the political and social context of the 1950s in North Africa.
The French protectorate is wavering under the pressure of the Moroccan separatists of Istiqlal but also that of the Americans who landed there in 1942 bringing their Coca-Cola and their beautiful cars but also their vision of world geopolitics where French colonization it no longer has its place.
This series sheds very interesting light on this period and this region.
Let’s talk Melvina Master in his afterword: “[…] I ensure that my atmospheric novels are inspired by great History, and that by reading my readers are immersed in the historical, urban and socio-cultural context of the 1950s. I strive to represent as much as possible. possible all the sensitivities of this Morocco under pre-independence protectorate, in a complex political context.”
And then of course we end up becoming friends with Miss Kaplan and her team: “he became attached to this singular, open and tolerant young woman. A mixture of insight, impertinence and humor.”
Detective Gabrielle Kaplan is a resourceful woman who has flair: her “nose” is even capable of deciphering the perfumes worn by one or the other. She is surrounded by Vincente, her devoted assistant, Brahim, her faithful Moroccan sidekick always ready to lend a helping hand, and Yvonne, a society columnist very informed about the underbelly of Casablanca high society.
This time, Commissioner Renaud (the only nice cop in the police station, neither corrupt nor racist!) calls on Miss Kaplan to elucidate a series of murders: corpses of prostitutes are found at the foot of the city’s most emblematic monuments. “[…] It was a woman’s body, completely naked. It was most likely left there after the murder as she was stabbed and there was no blood around. Probably very early this morning or in the middle of the night, since there are always people and people passing through there. One thing is certain, the location was not chosen at random. A war memorial right in the middle of the administrative center of the city, that means something, don’t you think?”
This is causing disorder and threatens to set fire to the smoldering powder: the French protectorate is having a hard time keeping the situation under control. The investigation will be an opportunity for us to discover the walled city, Bousbir, the district reserved for prostitution by the French settlers with its “concentration and medical administration”which we said “the largest open-air brothel in the world”. But the title suggests to us that soon the serial corpses will take us to the Pearl of the South, the ocher city, Marrakech, which at that time did not yet know mass tourism but which was already actively preparing for it!
As for the ink of this same title, it could be that of the newspapers that the administration is struggling to muzzle to prevent the matter from escalating an already tense situation, or perhaps that which the natives use for their tattoos…
Bruno Ménétrier
