‘King Arthur Case’ reveals colorful mystery
Given the degree of authenticity evident in Jean-Luc Bannalec’s Brittany mysteries, it’s hard to believe that the author is German. His real name is Jörg Bong, he writes in German and works for a German publishing house. However, he does divide his time between Frankfurt and the French département of Finastère. “The King Arthur Case” is No. 7 in the series; it’s one of Bannalec’s most colorful stories, if not the best of his mystery plots.
It’s evident on every page how much the author loves Brittany, or Bretagne, a region distinct from the rest of France because of its Celtic heritage, as well as the Breton language, somewhat similar to Cornish and Welsh. The area, which includes the forest of Broceliande, 40 miles southwest of the city of Rennes, is also the setting of the King Arthur legends, with mysterious messages carved into the barks of its trees, and the implicit presence of the world most famous wizard, Merlin.
Bannalec’s central character is Commissaire George Dupin, whose name (one may presume, intentionally) brings to mind the primal detective protagonist created by Edgar Allen Poe. The commissaire, however, is a Parisian, transferred reluctantly, at first, to an outpost in Brittany, though he has gradually grown to love his adoptive home base — the more so since he has found an attractive partner and soulmate, Claire, to share those parts of his life away from his police duties.
At the start of “The King Arthur Case,” the Commissaire, along with his indispensable female assistant Nolwenn and his two inspectors — Riwal and Kadeg — are on an “office outing” in the Foret de Broceliande, an excursion Dupin has combined with an unavoidable official interview he has committed to as a favor to his Parisian colleague and friend, Jean Odinot.
Broceliande, also known as Paimpont Forest, is the land of dreams and fantasies: according to Breton legend, the location of King Arthur and his knights of the round table, even of the Holy Grail itself. When Dupin leaves the group to attend to police business, he finds the man he is searching for — a noted Arthurian scholar named Fabien Cardiou — murdered by two gunshots and lying in a pool of his own blood.
What follows is a variation on a closed room mystery, although the “closed room” is in fact the entire Broceliande and its environs. There has been a previous unexplained death of an Arthurian scholar, and at the moment there’s a meeting of prominent Arthurians. Before long two more of the group have died and another has been nearfatally attacked. With the help of Nolwenn, Dupin discovers that all members of the group have been vying for a manuscript perhaps containing the location of the Holy Grail. Credit for uncovering this manuscript will place the finder high on the list to take over a coveted and lucrative opening in an important university.
They’re a motley bunch with divergent specialties: archeology, medieval history, medieval literature, language studies. And they hardly even pretend to be friends. Each has at least one motive to want the others out of the way. They also maintain opposing views on a controversial local decision to turn parts of the forest into an amusement park. From the start, this was a meeting designed for
mayhem, and Bannalec places the usually clear-minded Dupin in what seems to be an untenable position. But Dupin is fearless: “Sometimes a complicated situation had to be exacerbated in order to solve it,” he says.
But the author’s heart is with Brittany itself. His descriptions are always vivid and concise: “the summits of … one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world,” “the roughest, wildest beaches,” “mighty, rugged cliffs,” “dreamy bays,” “coral sands,” “fantastic stone formations as if on Mars,” “enchanted valleys,” “fields and meadows devoid of people.”
No landscape was like “the deep, dark, magic forest of Broceliand. ... Scenery so perfect it seemed to have been conjured up by…one of the great impressionists. ... Meadows and luscious, burgeoning bushes along the riverbank with, opposite, a spectacular steep gray crag … topped by a solitary, wind-blasted pine tree.”
Every one of Bannalec’s Brittany mysteries is an ode to his adoptive second home. If the actual whodunnit contained therein isn’t inevitably brilliant and believable, it hardly matters in the end.