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It was an unfriendly grey day, which rubbed off on everything, clouds and morale were hanging on the ground. Christmas was still three weeks away, but the Eternal Father in Heaven was already sprucing up his boarding house Zur Heiligen Familie for Christmas dinner. He plucked the geese and the feathers fell on Paris. At first the snowflakes were still shy, but there were more to follow unabashedly. The colour of the sky guaranteed that.
I stood at the window in my office, pipe in my mouth. I had pulled the muslin curtains to one side so that I could see out better. I watched as the sharp wind whirled up the snow like white splendour. Among other cheerful thoughts, I also realised that winter was really setting in, which would hardly improve Hélène’s health. A more or less Asian flu had thrown her into the pillows. As far as I was concerned, I was bored to death. If this went on for another week, I’d rather hand in my pension straight away.
When the phone rang, I immediately rushed to the receiver. The news of a disaster would at least liven things up a bit.
‘Hello,’ I answered.
‘Hello,’ a female voice answered. ‘Is this the Fiat Lux agency?’ … … …
I tried to bring some order to my interlocutor’s stammering.
‘What’s it about?’ I asked.
‘Do you deal with murder?’ she asked back.
from: Bamboule am Boul’Mich’
(my own translation)
no English version to be found
A PI in Paris
Nestor Burma loves life.
Paris is his home and he is busy in all parts of the City of Light and in all social classes. He may blend in … everywhere. He establishes his small PI agency Fiat Lux (aka Let there be light!) employing a secretary and two assistants during WWII resp. mainly after the war when he is in his 40s – and he is successful. However, this doesn’t mean that he rolls in money.
He chases lost husbands ordered by their wives, deals with blackmail based on former love affairs and searches stolen jewelry for an assurance company. He deals with entertainers, singers and actors, maybe as a bodyguard for a famous diva. He works for a judge being extorted and looks for a driver when an old lady misses her pearls. He encounters old comrades from his first years in Pais before WWII and gets in touch with gangs as well as with bohemians and artists.
… and there are always beautiful women crossing his paths!
… and although it always starts quite innocently soon there is a corpse, and another, and … Often Nestor is involved in violent scenes and ends up with injuries … blows to the back of his head leaving him unconscious or so.
Nestor Burma is always determined to close his cases. He’s got some friends at the police, but it seems that he is always a little bit more clever than the inspector.
On the one hand all these cases and Nestor Burma as the knight in shining armor – only virtually – reminds us of these iconic private detectives living and working at the Pacific coast somewhere in California. However, Nestor is also funny. When he talks about his cases there is always some airiness around. Life is hard, but life is also good. He accepts the cruelty of crimes around him and his clients, but there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.
In short: It’s fun to read the novels and make deep dives into Paris’ society.