The Collaborators

The aptly-titled English translation of Pierre Siniac's novel Ferdinaud Céline is a story of scandal, intrigue and conspiracy, in more ways than one.

The novel opens with two authors being interviewed on a television show about their recently published book. A strange mismatched pair, one is a homeless vagabond called Jean-Rémi Dochin and the other a former butcher and publisher called Charles Gastinel. However, on their way home after the show, the two men begin to argue and it soon becomes clear that Dochin is the novel's true author.

Although Dochin himself has little confidence in the novel's merit, several publishers and a hostel proprietor called Ferdinaud Céline (a clear reference to famous French writer and pardoned collaborator Ferdinaud Céline) hail it as a masterpiece. Yet when the novel starts to receive publicity a worrying trend ensues as critics who have written unfavourable reviews are found dead in suspicious circumstances.
As Siniac draws the reader into Dochin's past, he blends together first and third person narration and satire and the best elements of noir fiction to reveal much about the seedy underworld which has generated this forced collaboration. Ultimately, where Siniac really succeeds is in making the reader reconsider everything that has happened and come to what turns out to be a rather surprising conclusion.