Of Fever and Blood by Sire Cédric

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Of Fever and Blood by Sire Cédric (Publishers Square, 2013) is distributed in English by Open Road. Sire Cédric has published eight titles (with another due shortly) including L’enfant des cimetières (2009) which won the Masterston prize, this book, De fièvre et de sang (2010), which won the Polar prize at the Cognac festival and the first Cinécinéma Frissons prize, and Le jeu de l’ombre (2011). From this brief history, you’ll understand this author writes about monsters, madness and, without irony intended, rock music. In his novels and short stories, he’s influenced by Clive Barker and Stephen King, having moved from a career in journalism and translation, to writing police procedurals, often with a supernatural element. Le premier sang (2012), the second in this series, has been nominated for the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire and the Prix de l’Embouchure 2013.

Of Fever and Blood is the first of two supernatural thrillers featuring Inspectors Eva Svärta and Alexandre Vauvert. Eva Svärta is a profiler based in Paris. She specialises in cults and anything with an occult connection. We’re immediately pitched into the climax of their hunt for a kidnapped girl. Eva Svärta is assisting in a serial killer case being handled by the Homicide Unit in Toulouse where Alexandre Vauvert works. Structurally, this means the action kicks off in high gear with the pair breaking into a remote farmhouse — none of the niceties of search warrants and backup from SWAT for this pair. They are in (relatively) hot pursuit of the latest kidnapped young woman and are not inclined to let bureaucracy stand in their way. That’s why the two men found at the farm end up dead (well, probably) and the young woman is rescued. Such a good outcome allows the press to senationalise the whole episode as one involving vampires (it’s all about the blood, you see) who’ve been stopped (young women in the area can feel safer) and this positive reaction gives the senior echelons in the policing agencies the excuse to look the other way on the number of different laws broken and the deaths of the two “suspects”.

Sire Cédric

Not surprisingly, things don’t go back to normal. Just over a year later, there are two new deaths in Paris which have the same hallmarks from Toulouse. Vauvert is also tempted to return to the farmhouse where supernatural and natural events collide in a rather interesting way (technology is highly relevant here). This prompts our two characters to communicate with each other. They always were unhappy at the summary way their first case was wrapped up. Questions were left unanswered. Now’s their chance to continue the investigation. Except, of course, the two men they killed. . . Perhaps they were Renfields, working for one or more people struggling with the delusion of vampirism. Or just maybe, there’s a real supernatural issue to investigate and resolve here.

Half the interest and fun of this book is the way in which stolid police procedural meets something not covered in the standard training manuals. At one level, we’ve got the usual tropes at work. There’s the structural sexism blighting the career of Svärta. More importantly, there are some seniors officers who’ve seen some inexplicable things in their long careers and are not going to be overly critical if the new generation of officers get caught up in something similar and have to fight their way out, leaving a few bodies behind. And so on. Why should France’s finest have such latitude? Because what they find at the farm and subsequent murder scenes shows a highly organised approach to torturing the twenty-four women kidnapped (or more — keeping count may be important) and draining them of their blood. This signals the most critical failure in the initial investigation. Our heroes never did discover exactly what happened to all the blood.

All this should tell you Of Fever and Blood is a fascinatingly direct voyage into a slightly gothic version of grand guignol. The style is simple and, allowing for the usual melodramatic French sense of atmosphere, unflinching when it comes to describing the way in which the women are killed. We’re then off into slightly more conventional territory with the mythology of vampires and their companion wolves. All of which manages to capture attention early and then ride the curiosity factor through to the end. It’s a real page turner as matters grow increasingly dark for our police heroes. This is not to say the story is stunningly original. In this particular niche which, for these purposes, I’ll describe as supernatural horror and fantasy, there are only a certain number of ways in which an author can manipulate the plot elements. But the results here are carried off with remarkable élan. Given the amount of blood spilled, we’re in early Clive Barker territory. This is not to say the book or its style feels dated. Rather that it’s quite refreshing to find someone getting back to the basic craft of graphic supernatural horror. Put simply Of Fever and Blood is a riveting example of an intelligent plot and ruthlessly efficient pacing in a gore-soaked police procedural. I recommend it.

For a review of the sequel, see The First Blood.

A copy of this book was sent to me for review.