Desde hace tiempo, Marsella es el escenario de una serie de asesinatos salvajes, todos ellos perpetrados bajo la marca distintiva de una mano con tres dedos. El comisario Michel de Palma, también conocido como «El Barón» que conoce el lado oscuro de la ciudad incluso mejor que sus enemigos, tiene que resolver el caso. Para ello deberá remontarse a los orígenes de la humanidad: al parecer, estos crímenes, oscuros y sádicos, están inspirados por una cruel y misteriosa secta chamanística.

A textbook example of the dangers of taking a hit domestic novel and translating it for a wider international audience. Nuances of French culture drew a blank for this reader. Marseille is clearly meant to be a major character in the book, but most of this washed over me like so many holiday shows on television. A translation should stay in the background; in this book I felt I was always reading through the translation, wondering too many times 'No, is that what he really meant?' Having said all that, I did enjoy the novel: the plot was intriguing, the characters generally believable and the police politics real, if generally unintelligible. As soon as the laboured pages on the twin came up I had a pretty good idea of the killer's identity. ( )

All'inizio della lettura troviamo un omaggio a Izzo e avvertiamo il rischio di un'eredità con cui competere. Ma Bonnot non ci delude e ci presenta una Marsiglia dura e affascinante al tempo stesso. Viene naturale, poi, confrontare Fabio Montale con Michel De Palma, il commissario di Bonnot, ma la comparazione non dà esiti negativi poiché il Barone ha una personalità tutta sua, il libro ha una trama convincente e figure ben disegnate, con caratteri propri. Assolutamente intrigante è la trama, che ci conduce nel mondo degli archeologi e dei paleontologi. ( )

The First Fingerprint is a police procedural with a serial-killer plot line that draws on the study of prehistory to help guide the story, which takes some very odd turns before getting to the big reveal. Filled with enough suspects and red herrings to make any mystery reader happy, it's a good start to the series -- intelligently written and interesting enough to make me want more of Bonnot.

Michel De Palma is approaching his 25th year on the force; he knows retirement is just around the corner, although he's not quite ready for that step yet. He's a dedicated cop, not averse to bending the rules or slamming a suspect's head on a desk until blood is drawn, even though some of his younger colleagues protest loudly against his violent methods. He is also known for getting in the faces of his superiors when he doesn't agree with their orders. Yet even criminals he's dealt with in the past know that he's "straight and a very good policeman."

A walker finds the body of prehistory lecturer Christine Autran floating in the ocean below Le Torpilleur off the Marseille coast.
She had been strangled, tossed into the sea, and her neck had been broken. De Palma is put on the case, and recalls that some time earlier, another victim, Franck Luccioni, a "small-time thug," had been found in the same exact spot near an underground cave, a site of prehistoric activity, now underwater. The previous death showed no signs of violence, and was found to be the result of a diving accident. At first, he finds the coincidence odd, but when Luccioni's sister shows up with information about her brother, he begins to wonder if there might be some connection between the two cases. That's a tough enough job, but when other murder victims turn up, the stakes get even higher for De Palma and his team.

With plenty of suspects, several murders, a twisted and zig-zaggy line of reasoning and deduction to follow through to the end, there is more than enough in this novel to keep crime-fiction readers happy. It's intelligently written, has interesting characters and the plot is just odd enough to be different. I recommend, mainly to fans of translated crime fiction or to crime fiction readers who are looking for something well above average in their reading.

for a more fleshed-out discussion of this novel, you can click here. ( )

Desde hace tiempo, Marsella es el escenario de una serie de asesinatos salvajes, todos ellos perpetrados bajo la marca distintiva de una mano con tres dedos. El comisario Michel de Palma, también conocido como El Barón, conoce el lado oscuro de la ciudad incluso mejor que sus enemigos. Será el encargado de resolver estos crímenes oscuros y sádicos: Para ello deberá remontarse a los orígenes de la humanidad.