A dystopian tour de force

The Investigation

In Philippe Claudel’s latest novel to make the jaunt from French into English, the Investigator, the book’s main protagonist, arrives by train in a strange town, intent on making some sense of what has been deemed an excessive number of suicides — 23 in all, though one of them may have been simply an accident. From the beginning, everything seems off. There is no car waiting to collect him, no taxis to be had. The weather offers all four seasons in a day, and time keeps a peculiar flexibility. Then, stopping at a bar, he is offered a foreshadowing glimpse of what might lie ahead: the bartender cannot serve the drink he requests because the computerised register will be unable to recognise the order.

Worse is to follow.