Toulouse: the writer Bernard Minier exclusively unveils his new thriller with his Toulouse hero
The author of thrillers Bernard Minier announces the publication, on March 31, of his new novel as well as the adaptation of many others for the small screen. Exclusively…
The author of thrillers Bernard Minier announces the publication, on March 31, of his new novel as well as the adaptation of many others for the small screen.
We know the importance of the impregnation in places for you, that of your childhood made it possible to write the novels which made your success, and today?
Most ideas come to me with a place, I need these atmospheres, of this nature. I had the Pyrenees in front of my eyes throughout my childhood since I lived in Montréjeau in Haute-Garonne, so it is really a mental geography of which I am not fully recorded that we find in my books.
The place of agreement but what about the plot?
In a thriller, the plot is fundamental, you need a beginning, an end, a final twist, you have to constantly surprise the reader, keep them going. Besides, I often compare it all to figure skating with its imposed figures. And then there are the figures which for me are nature, the importance of the setting, very often the forest… of fairies. And in fairy tales the forest is always present. It’s Hansel and Gretel who are sent there by their parents who want to get rid of them, it’s Little Thumb, and there are always castles, forests, mountains …
In your next novel will the setting be different?
Yes, since it will take place in Spain, where I visited this summer. I was in Salamanca, Segovia and the Spanish Pyrenees because I need this impregnation. It will be something a little new and besides it was a great experience since I was very well received at the University of Salamanca where I met a group of criminology students led by a professor. It’s amazing because I had imagined this group without knowing that it existed. There is only one in Spain and it is precisely where I had located it!
In this new novel, not Martin Servaz your recurring hero …
Indeed, Martin Servaz will not be in the next book. For now, I’ve put him on leave for a while, he needs to enjoy life now that he has company and that she is pregnant. In the new book to be published in March, we will meet Lucia Guerrero, a young Spanish police officer with a pig character, very different from Martin Servaz. And then we will discover this group of criminology which is installed in the basements of the faculty of law of Salamanca, which really exists. They explained to me their way of working and that gave me a lot of ideas, but obviously, fiction allows certain arrangements with the truth.
In addition, in your novels, the city, and Toulouse in particular, occupy their place …
Yes the city is present as many American and French thrillers are rather urban. My character could have been a gendarme from the research section of Pau but I needed a Toulouse cop because I knew the city where I was a student. And then there is so much to say about this city! We find there the tradition embodied by all these mansions that some do not see when passing by, and the most absolute modernity with the Aerospace and the entire space sector. And, all things considered, it is not Marseille or Barcelona, but it is all the same a city in the South, a city where many movements, people come from elsewhere. Spaniards, like my mother who arrived in France at the age of 8, Italians, people from across the Mediterranean, all this melting pot is still extremely interesting for a thriller.
A mine for television
After the successful adaptation, in 2017, of “Glacé” (2011) with Charles Berling in the lead role (available on Netflix in 190 countries and on the Canal + package), other novels by Bernard Minier will be the subject of series or single episodes: “There will be a sequel to“ Glacé ”but not“ Le Cercle ”which was my second book, rather a serial adaptation of“ La Vallée ”(2020). This will also be the case for “Une Putain d’histoire” (2015) which will be a French production since the book took place on an island off Seattle in the United States. For French television, the plot should take place on the magnificent Île de Groix in Brittany where we find all the ingredients that are in the novel, that is to say the cliffs, the lighthouse, the small port of fishing that goes well, the beach with the forest next to it, the ferry that takes you to the mainland. For the moment these are the projects and then will perhaps come an adaptation of “The Hunt” (2021). “