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herbieridesagain 's review for:
The Godmother
by Hannelore Cayre
The Godmother came to my attention thanks to A Good Read on Radio 4, I could listen to Harriet Gilbert all day, but that is not why we are here. I can’t remember who picked this as their good read, but I do remember listening to the conversation and thinking, this sounds quite good.
And it is. I’m not not normally a crime fiction kind of guy but the story is well crafted and told with humour and feeling and in such a way that it’s almost impossible not to be rooting for this unexpected short reigning drug lord of Paris.
Patience Portefeux recollects her childhood, with a family that had strayed slightly outside the law and saved their ostentation for when they were away on holiday, where young Patience tells Audrey Hepburn that she wanted to travel the world collecting fireworks, by watching displays everywhere, a simple yet quite beautiful idea. Later though her father ends his life on his own terms and Patience ends up with her broke mother living in a care home that she is paying for. In her mid fifties she is fast approaching retirement, but working as a translator for the police and being paid off the books, she has no pension to look forward to, which means nothing for her two daughters or herself, let alone keeping her mum in the home.
While working on a case about Moroccans smuggling drugs into Paris via Spain, Patience deliberately steps in to protect them, when she discovers that the nurse assigned to her mother is one of the smugglers mothers. In the end, the only person that knows where the huge quantity of Grade A hashish has been hidden is Patience, and so an extraordinary new life blossoms for the middle aged translator, which she has to hide from her police detective boyfriend.
As she recollects, the tale swings from humour of what she thinks of her employers, and of the drug dealers she has to deal with, even of the unexpected bond between here and the Chinese matriach in her building, to the complicated relationship with her mother, who she still can’t bear to see being wasted away by age and an uncaring system. It was funny in a way that her translation work gave her an intricate knowledge of the drug business tha enabled her to deal with the dealers as equals. It was less funny that despite just how crucial the translation work is to the police, the people that do it are treated with, at best, indifference.
I really enjoyed it, and would say that it’s probably a good beach read, and I say this in the middle of the Corona virus lockdown, wondering just when we’ll be able to see a beach again. Everything is tied up neatly at the end and yet somehow it feels that Patience is in the right, and the law, and everything else is in the wrong.
(blog review here)
And it is. I’m not not normally a crime fiction kind of guy but the story is well crafted and told with humour and feeling and in such a way that it’s almost impossible not to be rooting for this unexpected short reigning drug lord of Paris.
Patience Portefeux recollects her childhood, with a family that had strayed slightly outside the law and saved their ostentation for when they were away on holiday, where young Patience tells Audrey Hepburn that she wanted to travel the world collecting fireworks, by watching displays everywhere, a simple yet quite beautiful idea. Later though her father ends his life on his own terms and Patience ends up with her broke mother living in a care home that she is paying for. In her mid fifties she is fast approaching retirement, but working as a translator for the police and being paid off the books, she has no pension to look forward to, which means nothing for her two daughters or herself, let alone keeping her mum in the home.
While working on a case about Moroccans smuggling drugs into Paris via Spain, Patience deliberately steps in to protect them, when she discovers that the nurse assigned to her mother is one of the smugglers mothers. In the end, the only person that knows where the huge quantity of Grade A hashish has been hidden is Patience, and so an extraordinary new life blossoms for the middle aged translator, which she has to hide from her police detective boyfriend.
As she recollects, the tale swings from humour of what she thinks of her employers, and of the drug dealers she has to deal with, even of the unexpected bond between here and the Chinese matriach in her building, to the complicated relationship with her mother, who she still can’t bear to see being wasted away by age and an uncaring system. It was funny in a way that her translation work gave her an intricate knowledge of the drug business tha enabled her to deal with the dealers as equals. It was less funny that despite just how crucial the translation work is to the police, the people that do it are treated with, at best, indifference.
I really enjoyed it, and would say that it’s probably a good beach read, and I say this in the middle of the Corona virus lockdown, wondering just when we’ll be able to see a beach again. Everything is tied up neatly at the end and yet somehow it feels that Patience is in the right, and the law, and everything else is in the wrong.
(blog review here)