Maxime Chattam turns the great white shark into his newest bogeyman
In a new thriller called Morsures, published by Albin Michel, the French author sets a string of deaths on the Breton coast against teenagers drawn to old local legends.
Maxime Chattam's new novel, Morsures, opens with two deaths within a fortnight along the coast of Brittany, raising the possibility of a great white shark attack, according to Livres Hebdo. A gendarme from Dinan named Lucas leads the investigation, while two teenagers from Paris, Mathis and Enzo, fall in with a group of local adolescents fascinated by old regional legends.
Speaking to Livres Hebdo, Chattam described the predator at the heart of the book as a stand-in for a very old fear. "Le prédateur, c'est le croque-mitaine des temps modernes," he said — the predator is the modern-day bogeyman. He framed the novel, published by Albin Michel, as an exploration of adolescence, predation and collective fear, and of the particular appeal of the thriller genre: letting readers feel dread without being in any real danger.
Le prédateur, c'est le croque-mitaine des temps modernes.
Maxime Chattam, to Livres Hebdo
No further details about the book's length, release date or plot beyond this outline were given in the source material.
Sources
This article was written from these reports.