Down and out in Paris

When a sheet of black ice and an epileptic dog (called Julius) are considered viable characters, the reader needs no statutory warning that this is not a standard thriller. What follows is a story of Rabelasian boisterousness, Marquez-like magical realism peppered with the earthy black humour of the Parisian mean streets to provide a cracker of a thriller.

The Fairy Gunmother isn't just a detective story; it operates at several levels. At its most basic, it is an old-fashioned detective story: the police are trying to find a serial killer of old women.

They are also trying to track whoever murdered Vanini, a racist over-achieving policeman who had his "head turned into a flower" (if you believe Half Pint's version), shot by an old dear while he was trying to help her cross the aforementioned sheet of black ice.

At another level, it is a story of post-colonial France, struggling with all the social tensions and pressures that emerge when former subject races become citizens. At a third level, it is an unsentimental celebration of rough justice, humanity and hope amid deprivation and depravation.

All these plots overlap in a complex weave and it is to Pennac's credit that he is able to sustain this vivid tapestry without losing the thread or the reader's attention.

The serial killings of the grannies is linked to a corruption scandal that is being investigated by an intrepid journalist, which is linked to an ambitious city bureaucrat and a famous architect's plans to acquire real estate in Paris which, in turn, is linked to a scheme to provide smack to retiring city employees which... but to reveal more would be to give away the story.

As would be expected, the dramatis personae "" the human ones that is, though dog and black ice have distinct personalities and contributions to the plot "" are scarcely ordinary. For all that, they're not unreal either.

The crack detective squad consists of two men whose chief form of sustenance appears to be a random variety of pills and alcohol, which, among other things, help them acquire a clear-headed realism and intuition.

One of the detectives is Van Thian, a half-Vietnamese hypochondriac copper given to disguising himself as an old woman. The other is the gentle, cerebral Pastor, struggling with childhood nightmares and reputed for such an effective technique of interrogation that his perps always confess.

At one point an ambitious detective inspector asks him: "Tell me, Pastor, how do you manage to make such swine confess?" Pastor's elliptical answer: "By adopting a humane approach, sir," The "humane approach" is bizarre but canny.

Pastor, who could be depended on to look pale and scraggy in an oversized sweater, tells the accused that he is suffering from terminal cancer (untrue), has three months to live and therefore no stake in his career. So he gives his criminals a simple choice: either they should confess or he would kill them.

At the centre of all this is Bernard Malaussene, the narrator of this incredible yet believable story, a 'scapegoat' by profession (it's his job to take the hit for any mix-ups at the publishing house where he works) and his extended family.

This family consists of his mother, who whelps at regular intervals (fathers mostly unknown), a sister with an uncanny ability to look into the future, read characters and generally perform miracles, Julie, his beautiful, tough journalist girlfriend, his brother Half Pint (one of his mother's offspring), plus a variety of old men (his grandfathers, he calls them) who have been rescued off the streets and are in the throes of various stages of Cold Turkey.

On the fringes of this are people like the picaresque Stojilkovicz, the Croat bus driver who teaches a bunch of old buddies target practice each Sunday in the catacombs. Note that none of these characters are surplus to requirement "" they're all connected to the plots.

The Fairy Gunmother was written in 1987 but has been published by Rupa this year as part of its Rupa France series. Ian Monk has managed a good translation that maintains the richness and energy of the narrative.

It is worth the Rs 297 at which it is priced, not least because, for once, Rupa has managed a reprint without several typos on every page, though, alas, the pages have a distressing habit of taking leave of the binding.

THE FAIRY GUNMOTHER

Daniel Pennac

Rupa

Pages: 248

Price: Rs 295