In reading mode: a new nugget

DAY

In 2020, Scottish-born writer Douglas Stuart burst onto the literary scene with Shuggie Bain , winner of the prestigious Booker Prize. But in our opinion, Mungo, his second novel, is even better…

Mungo Hamilton , 15, owes his funny first name to Saint Mungo, the patron saint of the city of Glasgow. This is where he lives, alongside his big sister Jodie and their “Mo-Maw”, whose alcohol problems have been getting worse for some time.

As for his brother Hamish (aka Ha-Ha), he doesn't see him as often as he used to. Because he lives with his girlfriend, and because he is now the head of an ultra-violent gang of Protestants who like to attack local Catholics.

Yes, welcome to the 1990s, when this kind of bickering is still relevant and where, according to the standards of the time, there is “nothing worse than being a chump as weak as a woman”…

Leaving to come back better?

It often happens that the summary printed on the back of books says too much, way too much. So if possible, it is better to avoid reading the one that appears at the back of this novel to let yourself be carried away little by little by the story. Which begins with the departure of Mungo, his “Mo-Maw” having decided to entrust him for a whole weekend to two licensed drunks he met at AA meetings. The purpose of this strange enterprise? Make him a real man. And for that, they are going to take him fishing in an isolated loch in the Highlands, where they will not be long in confessing to the teenager that they have both done quite a lot of prison time…

We stop there to reveal nothing. A crush.

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Shivers guaranteed

The demons of Berlin

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Starting from another real fact – this time, it will be the arson of the Reichstag, which houses the German Parliament –, this novel invites us to find him in February 1933 in Vienna, under the name of Peter Rach. Like many people at the time, Sauer was better off staying hidden. Hitler has been Chancellor of the Reich for a month now and we cannot say that the climate in the country is light and joyful. On the contrary.

At the heart of the storm

It is the disappearance of Rosa, the woman he loves, that will force him to leave his hideout. Knowing that she had joined the Resistance and that she was preparing a coup against the Nazi regime, Sauer is convinced that something bad happened to her.

For more information, he will therefore go to Berlin. And once there, he will be devastated to discover that several women who look a lot like his Rosa have been disfigured and murdered…

A captivating story, barely less good than that of the first volume of the series.