A review by octavia_cade
Total Chaos by Jean-Claude Izzo

challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

3.0

Stories about disaffected cops who turn their backs on their careers due to institutional corruption aren't uncommon. This one stands out, however - albeit not, perhaps, for character. There's a vast cast here for a relatively short book, and Fabio Montale, the detective protagonist, is distantly likable, even if he doesn't have much of a personality. Or if he does, it's sketched out: not absent, exactly, but the one great force of personality depicted in Total Chaos doesn't belong to a person. Rather, it's the city of Marseilles itself that looms over the narrative. I've never been there. I'm not familiar with the politics of the place, but the city that Izzo depicts is messy and lovely and violent, a city of historic and contemporary immigration, of poverty and distrust and racism, the burgeoning influence of the National Front. Picking his way through this is Montale, and his inability to deal with the reality of Marseilles as a cop, or as a friend, is at breaking point. 

It's grim reading, but I find myself caring less about the solution to the various murders than I do the evolution of the city itself, and how the various communities there adapt to the constant change and economic uncertainty that change brings. Montale is basically a placeholder (and I use the word deliberately) for exploring the social setting of Marseilles, and I find myself perfectly fine with that, less interested in him than in where he lives.