Syndrome E

by Franck Thilliez Narrated by Gildart Jackson

Overview

The classic police procedural meets cutting-edge science in this huge international bestseller. Already a runaway bestseller in France, Syndrome E tells the story of beleaguered detective Lucie Henebelle, whose old friend has developed a case of spontaneous blindness after watching an extremely rare-and violent-film from the 1950s. Embedded in the film are subliminal images so unspeakably heinous that Lucie realizes she must get to the bottom of it-especially when nearly everyone who comes into contact with the film starts turning up dead. Enlisting the help of Inspector Franck Sharko-a brooding, broken analyst for the Paris police who is exploring the film's connection to five murdered men left in the woods-Lucie begins to strip away the layers of what is perhaps the most disturbing and powerful film ever made. Soon Sharko and Lucie find themselves mired in a darkness that spreads across politics, religion, science, and art while stretching from France to Canada, Egypt to Rwanda, and beyond. And just who is responsible for this darkness will blow listeners' minds, as Syndrome E forces them to consider: What if the earliest and most brilliant advances and discoveries of neuroscience were not used for good but for evil? With this taut US debut, Thilliez explores the origins of violence through cutting-edge and popular science in a breakneck thriller rich with shocking plot twists and profound questions about the nature of humanity.

Editorial Reviews

Booklist

Thilliez delivers crisp prose and a scorching plot that takes readers from the lively streets of Paris to the deadly Egyptian desert.”

SoundCommentary.com

Gildart Jackson’s gentle, well-paced, fully voiced, polished reading is perfect for this excellent, complex story about two smart, sensitive, very human professionals who solve an almost unsolvable series of crimes. Outstanding. Don’t miss this one.”

Le Monde Magazine

A tour de force…A captivating plot that keeps the reader in his seat until the final moments.”

author of A Welcome Grave Michael Koryta

With a fascinating blend of noir procedural, espionage flavor, and an eerie setup that makes the video from The Ring seem harmless, it is no surprise that Syndrome E has already been an international sensation. Beneath its dazzling, byzantine plot are menacing questions of what lurks at the intersection between the new and chilling capabilities of neuroscience and the ancient but more-chilling capabilities of human evil.”

AudioFile

Here’s something different for American listeners, a gripping horror-suspense novel from acclaimed French author Franck Thilliez. Be warned: it’s gruesome. The audiobook benefits greatly from the performance of narrator Gildart Jackson, a TV and film actor with great range and skill. He moves easily from a French accent to Egyptian and Canadian accents, making each character distinct. His subtlety makes the descriptions of horrible experiments even more frightening as ruthless scientists try to determine what causes people to fly into murderous rages. The emotionally damaged detective, from “Columbo” to “Monk,” is common stock in mysteries, so the foibles of detective Franck Sharko will not shock listeners.”

Metro (Paris)

Franck Thilliez leads his story like a beating drum, multiplying the reverberations without ever losing track of the psychological development of his characters…A reflection on the origins of violence that is as playful as it is erudite. Essential reading!”

Elle (Paris)

Blending science and neurology into the intrigue of his excellent thriller, Thilliez takes us into the maze of the human brain, with all the evils it can unleash.”

DECEMBER 2012 - AudioFile

Here’s something different for American listeners, a gripping horror/suspense novel from acclaimed French author Franck Thilliez. Be warned: It's gruesome. The audiobook benefits greatly from the performance of narrator Gildart Jackson, a TV and film actor with great range and skill. He moves easily from a French accent to Egyptian and Canadian accents, making each character distinct. His subtlety makes the descriptions of horrible experiments even more frightening as ruthless scientists try to determine what causes people to fly into murderous rages. The emotionally damaged detective, from “Columbo” to “Monk,” is common stock in mysteries, so the foibles of detective Franck Sharko will not shock listeners. M.S. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

In this terrific French thriller, a veteran Paris profiler struggling with paranoid schizophrenia and a lonely female police detective are brought together by a series of gruesome murders that have something to do with an old experimental film containing disturbing subliminal images. Chief Inspector Franck Sharko is a medicated mess. His wife, who died with their daughter in a horrific accident, appears to him in taunting visions; he runs toy trains in his apartment to blot out sounds in his head. But he's a lot better off than five men who were buried with the tops of their heads cut off and their brains removed. Detective Lucie Hennebelle, a single mom whose daughter is in the hospital with a mysterious ailment, has two patients to attend to after an old boyfriend of hers is blinded by an experimental movie he bought in a house sale. After others who have had contact with the film are murdered--one of them is hung with the film strips of Good Day for a Hanging--Lucie follows a lead to Montreal, where the film was shot in the '50s and at least one of the girls who appeared in it still lives. Sharko is sent to Egypt, where three girls were victimized in the same manner as the five men, and his own life is threatened. Teaming up in Canada, the investigators learn about the little-known phenomenon of Syndrome E--the inducement of hysteria and violence through sensory control--and its possible role in mass killings. The Nazis, the French Legion and the CIA all have had a stake in the film experiments. This novel boasts distinctive characters you want to spend time with, a lively plot, evocative settings, fun film references and, icing on the cake, an enjoyable offbeat romance. Having achieved bestseller status in Europe, Thilliez is poised to do the same in the U.S.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169868029
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	08/16/2012
Series:	Lucie Henebelle and Inspector Sharko , #1
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

“Careful on that. That’s where my father fell and fractured his skull. I mean, really, climbing up there at eighty-two . . .”

Ludovic paused an instant, then rushed forward. He thought of the old man, so passionate about his films that he’d died for them. He climbed as high as he could and continued shopping. Behind The Kremlin Letter, on a hidden shelf, he discovered a black canister with no label. Balancing on the ladder, Ludovic picked it up. Inside was what looked like a short, since the film took up only part of the reel. Ten or twenty minutes’ projection time, tops. Probably a lost film, a unique specimen that the owner had never managed to identify. Ludovic grabbed it up, climbed down, and added it to the stack of nine cult films he’d already chosen. Anonymous reels like this always added spice to the screenings.

He turned around, playing it cool, but his pulse was pounding.

“I’m afraid most of your movies aren’t worth a whole lot. Pretty standard stuff. And besides, can you smell that odor?”

“What odor?”

“Vinegar. The films have been affected by vinegar syndrome. They’ll be worthless before long.”

The young man leaned forward and sniffed.

“You sure about that?”

“Absolutely. I’m willing to take these ten off your hands. Shall we say thirty-five euros apiece?”

“Fifty.”

“Forty.”

“All right . . .”

Ludovic wrote out a check for four hundred euros. As he was pulling away from the curb, he noticed a car with French plates looking for a parking spot.

No doubt another collector—already.

Ludovic emerged from his home projection booth and sat down, alone with a can of beer, in one of the twelve fifties-style leatherette seats that he’d scavenged when they closed the Rex: his own private movie theater. He’d created an authentic auditorium for himself in the basement of his house, which he called his “mini-cinema.” Fold-up seats, stage, pearlescent screen, Heurtier Tri-Film projector: he had it all. At the age of forty-two, the only thing he was missing was a partner, someone to squeeze close while watching Gone with the Wind in the original English. But for the moment, those lousy dating sites had yielded only one-night stands or washouts.

It was nearly three in the morning. Saturated with images of war and espionage, he decided to round out his marathon screening with the unidentified, and incredibly well-preserved, short feature. It must have been a copy. These unlabeled films sometimes turned out to be veritable treasures or, if the gods were really smiling, lost works by famous filmmakers like Méliès, Welles, or Chaplin. The collector in him loved to fantasize about such things. When Ludovic unspooled the leader to wind the film into the projector, he saw that the strip was marked 50 frames per second. That was unusual: normally it was twenty-four per second, more than sufficient to give the illusion of movement. Still, he adjusted the shutter speed to the recommended setting. No point watching it in slow motion.

Within seconds, the whiteness of the screen yielded to a dark, clouded image, with no title or credits. A white circle appeared in the upper right corner. Ludovic wondered at first if it was a flaw in the print, as oft en happened with those old reels. Thee film began.

Ludovic fell heavily as he ran upstairs.

He couldn’t see a thing, not even with the lights on.

He was completely blind.

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