I finished The Reversal by Michael Connelly yesterday. Full review to come. Connelly makes some interesting decisions about how to resolve—or not resolve—certain vital aspects of the novel that lead me to believe he has a sequel planned.
Did a little yard work yesterday. Last winter we lost our hibiscus plants due to several consecutive freezes. They’d weathered over a dozen winters before that, so I didn’t take any precautions, but they all croaked. I tried replacing them with azaleas this summer, but we had such a hot dry summer and the bed is relatively shaded that they didn’t thrive, either. This time I’m trying some euonymus plants that are supposedly hardy through both cold and sunny weather. I like the fact that the leaves are colored. Planting in the fall is apparently a good idea in Texas because the plants have a chance to take root out of the blistering summer sun. We’ll see. We tend to be laissez faire about our plants, so we look for low-maintenance foliage.
We watched Inspector Bellamy, starring Gerard Depardieu, this weekend. It was the last movie directed by Claude Chabrol and the first time Chabrol and Depardieu worked together. The title character is inspired by Inspector Maigret, the stoic hero of Simenon’s novels. Simenon is one of the few authors I can read in French, since his style and vocabulary tend to be straightforward. I still need my Larousse when reading a Maigret book, but I can usually get by without referring to it more than once or twice a page.
Bellamy is a famous police chief, with a stellar career and a bestselling memoir. He and his wife are at her family home in Nimes on vacation. She’d rather be on a cruise to Egypt, but simply getting him out of the city to the summer home is a feat, so she’s not complaining. Much. They are a charming couple, clearly still deeply in love with each other, passionate and tender. He’s trying to relax, but work finds him all the same. A fugitive who is suspected of killing someone to perpetuate life insurance fraud has been loitering around the summer home, working up the nerve to talk to Bellamy. For reasons I never quite figured out, Bellamy takes an interest in the man, who planned to leave the life insurance money to his wife while taking off with his mistress. The plan didn’t work, so now the guy is holed up in a cheap motel with a new face and a new name and national media attention. Bellamy should have turned the guy in—especially since his plan called for disposing of a homeless man in his stead—but instead he seems to sympathize.
The other plotline involve’s Bellamy’s younger half-brother, Jacques, who drops in for an unannounced, open-ended visit. He’s a drunk, a gambler and a thief who resents Bellamy for stealing all the luck and leaving none for him. Though Bellamy apparently sees some parallels between his brother’s situation and the fugitive’s, I thought a better parallel was to the hapless homeless man who once had a respectable life and a long-term relationship before turning to drink.
There’s a lot of talking—this isn’t a fast paced mystery—and very little is at stake, so some people might find this movie lethargic. I found it interesting (in large part due to Depardieu’s comfort with the role and the relationship between Bellamy and his wife) and somewhat confounding, as I was never quite sure why people acted the way they did. I tried to imagine the scene (not shown) where Bellamy’s wife returns the 2000 euros his brother stole from some friends, for example. How did that play out? And I wondered why Bellamy’s wife stuck up for his brother to the extent she did, and also whether there really was something going on between them.
And then there was the singing defense attorney. That was just plain bizarre! I didn’t agree with the resolution to the case. Even though it turned out that the fugitive didn’t actively kill anyone, he set the scene in motion and he really did commit fraud.
