The Madonna of Notre Dame
by Alexis Ragougneau
The Madonna of Notre Dame by Alexis Ragougneau (translated into English by Katherine Gregor) is a crime novel in the French tradition of detective stories with unlikely sleuths (think Fred Vargas, amongst many others). The shocking, erotically-tinged murder at the centre of this whodunnit takes place in the hallowed spaces of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, and so it is perhaps hardly surprising that the character who, quite against his wishes, investigates and solves the mystery is none other than one of the Cathedral clerics, Father François Kern.
Father Kern has a medical condition which brings him great pain, but his suffering is more of a spiritual one, the result of the loss of a brother for which he considers himself, in some way responsible. Kern’s inquiry brings him in contact with other outsiders, including a homeless man who sleeps near the cathedral, a prisoner who gives him tips about the investigation, and an inquiring magistrate whose official investigation of the case is tragically cut short but who strikes an unexpected friendship with the priest.
This is, on the whole, an interesting crime novel, but I can’t deny certain reservations. The first one is that, because of its very subject (the murder of an attractive young woman dressed all in white and – without going into specifics – the abuse of her body in one of the most famous Catholic cathedrals in the world) the novel skirts closely, depending on your sensitivities, either to blasphemy and/or to a triggering portrayal of disturbing religious/sexual fetishes. All this, ultimately, just for the sake of a good story which would have worked equally well without some of the more explicit detail.
I also found the portrayal of Father Kern rather unconvincing. Apart from the fact that his debilitating disease is never really explained (despite it featuring prominently in the novel), his character suffers from a complex which sometimes seems to afflict fictional clerics: even when, like Father Kern, they are portrayed as good and practising priests, they resort to prayer surprisingly rarely and their reasoning and thought processes are scarcely different from that of any other “lay”/secular character. Another point is that when the murderer is revealed there is an attempt to delve into the murderer’s psyche, an idea which I found compelling, but is not developed in any detail.
I see that Alexis Ragougneau has written a sequel
featuring Father Kern. I liked the first novel of the series well enough to
look out for its translation, even though I’m hoping it will deliver more.
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