“Commissaire Georges Dupin had made a new friend.”

The first few pages dispel any notion that this investigation will just be another cosy crime. It is literature. It is blue. The sea, the sky, the Bretons even have their own word for it glaz. Claire is wearing blue. Blue is for the police.

Dupin is swimming. A seal comes up to join him. There is a cry for help. Dupin rushes to cover up his wet shorts. There is a body in the water. Not drowned. But strangled. Two, maybe three hours ago. The sea mist is down symbolically and they can barely see anything.

Day one and he is on deadline already. An event is planned to mark his 10 years in Brittany. His present from colleagues is to sit for a diploma in the Breton language. The primer is organised in practical chapters. “Eating (a comprehensive chapter). Drinking (an even more comprehensive chapter)”.

His indefatigable, brilliant supremo Nolwenn – “the world has gone mad, Monsieur le Commissaire. But don’t worry. I will deal with it.” –  reminds him he had better hurry this investigation up because such things are non-negotiable. Murders should be solved. Quickly. Social events cannot be altered. Boats though are a problem, a pet phobia, awkward for someone whose beat is along the coast. The victim was from the Belle Isle, one of the most beautiful islands in Europe

A hair-raising boat trip ensures, a history lesson from Riwag his inspector who is also coincidentally from, the island, also there is his other side kick the self-important Kadeg. “His more likeable side, by contrast, took a while to discover; it had taken Dupin years”. The hire car, to his delight, is an old Citroen Mehari. It is frog green which seems aptly different. George likes to do things his way. No roof. It was all they had left, boss. The team is back in action. This is the 10^th of the Brittany mystery series, each one seemingly more impossible to solve than the last.

In a very French manner, no one gets into this book without due introduction: “Agnes was a petite woman with soft features. She was wearing functional dark blue cloth pants and a matching polo shirt”.  Micheline: “The small, robust-looking woman had a healthy complexion, sparkling eyes and seemed to be a jovial, dynamic person”. She has dedicated herself to setting up a museum for the Sarah Bernhardt who lived on the island. Dupin notices these things.

The Brittany scenery is as much a feature as the plot. After all this is where Monet came to paint. And Rodin and others.  Dupin needs quiet places to cogitate. He finds his perfect spot at Goulou. “Absolutely perfect. This, right here, was his place. Ar baradoz, paradise. Simply put in Breton. It didn’t get better than this.” It also happens to be a bar and distillery.

The investigation picks up pace, a ransom demand, a link to a kidnapping in Nantes…The colours change from blue to orange.

All this Dupin neatly records in his Clairefontaine notebook. Everyone on the island is a suspect, at least until Dupin notices that the garden was damp, there was a baguettes missing, there was a motive after all. And then it is all off to dinner, of course…and smoked mackerel on buckwheat blinis with an apple and seaweed chutney washed down with a white Sancerre.

Jean-Luc Bannalec’s structure and format are Germanic in their organisation, but then he is German, an adopted son of Brittany, real name Jorg Bong, a former publisher himself who concocts these expertly crafted mysteries, homages to a forgotten part of Europe. A pleasure.