A rag tag bunch of dysfunctional misfits are put together to form a cold case unit for the French police. What this means is that this book now contains an eclectic and entertaining group of characters that you want to support and see succeed in all of their endeavours.

Takes a while to get into but worth it.

There was much to enjoy here, but I found I couldn't connect with it. I'd read more from this author in the future though. Also I really love the cover!

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Commissaire Anne Capistan is in trouble, she has shot one too many suspects and is suspended. Salvation comes in the form of Chief Buron who allocates Capistan to a new squad who will look into cold cases. However when Capistan sees who is on her squad, she knows that her team consists of those officers that cannot be fired but need to be parked out of the way. The team pick up on a couple of unsolved murders, the only ones that they have, and they quickly find that they are related. Bureaucracy seem determined to stop the team investigating these crimes but against the odds the individuals bond together with common cause.

I really enjoyed this French police procedural mainly because there is an excellent story and a terrific bunch of characters. It is easy to get engrossed in the plot but the little hints and slow development of the backstories and idiosyncrasies of the individuals also beguiles. I found the book humorous but also clever which is a great combination.

What a refreshing find! A French police procedural with snappy characters, multilayered narration and certain "je ne sais quoi"... *grins*



It's got elements of comedy and tragedy, but they are so intermixed that it's a fairly light, cosy mystery type of read.



The commissaire Anne Capestan fully expects to get fired after a six-month leave due to excessive use of force when she basically shot a criminal who kidnapped two kids point blank. She knows she has rage issues and she also knows she burned out in the unit she was worn at the time as all the kid cases were hitting her too hard. At the same time, the police force is her lifeline and she doesn't know how to live without it.


Imagine her surprise, when she is not fired, but also promoted to lead a newly appointed unit of misfits and undesirables whose sole purpose now is to take on unsolved crimes so the rest of the force could look sparkly clean in comparison.


Determined to make lemonade she starts going through cold cases, waiting for her new unit to slowly trickle in, and her new team suddenly uncovers new evidence and a suspicious connection between some of the old crimes.


Soon, Anne and her partner, whose reputation of a bad luck charm proceeds itself to the point of people refusing to work with the guy, but who is actually a teddy bear constantly talking about his kids, are on one of the cases, while an ex-internal affair officer is paired up with a rich authoress, whose books have just been turned into TV series, and whose satire left the hire ups too constipated. The couple realises to mutual surprise that they work well together and proceed to do just that.


There are other misfits who are slowly incorporated into the teamwork: an old drunkard and a young gambler who stay on surveillance, an ex-hacker whose brain turned to mush due to a head injury, a policeman who is very bad at car chases but who is obsessed with them, another policeman famous for revealing internal corruption to his media sources...


They are all lively, charming and with their own distinctive quirks. The investigation is pretty interesting, and the plot alternates between pieces of the past and present, so while it's confusing in the beginning, all becomes clear later on.


Overall, juicy, intriguing and refreshing read, grave & lighthearted at the same time, and wth a real French flair. Recommended.

A crime writer, a drunk, a gambler, a rat & a s**t magnet….these are just a few of the police officers Commissaire Anne Capestan inherits when she is “promoted” to lead the newly formed cold case unit of the Police Judiciaire of Paris. But then she’s in no position to judge. She got the new assignment due to her tendency to shoot people.

Anne’s boss is cleaning house & that means getting rid of all unsolved cases right along with officers who have been deemed “undesirables”. Their mandate is clear. The unit will set up shop in an old apartment building, furnished with boxes of cold case files. They can work on whichever ones they want. Or not. Show up each day as if they have a real job. Or not. Just stay away from police HQ. Approximately 40 cops of various rank are assigned to the unit. On the first day, 3 report for duty.

Eva Rosière is a flamboyant woman who made a fortune moonlighting as a crime writer. Unfortunately she wrote about what she knew….her colleagues. But she still loves being a cop & will get to work right after she does something about the deplorable lack of decor in their new office.

Lóuis-Baptiste Lebreton already knows Anne. He investigated her in his previous job with Internal Affairs & they didn’t exactly part on the best of terms.

“Malchance” Torrez is like a black cat. After losing a series of partners due to injury or death, no one wants to cross his path & he can clear a room by walking in the door.

Anne decides they have nothing to lose & after digging through all the boxes, 2 cases stand out. Yann Guénan was a sailor who was murdered 20 years ago in a professional style hit. Old age pensioner Marie Sauzelle was killed in her home 8 years ago in what looked like a robbery gone wrong. Anne & her colleagues pair up & begin to dig into the past. Turns out they’re not complete screw-ups after all & before they know it, that digging results in a fresh body.

In alternate chapters we follow 2 additional story lines. One introduces us to Alexandre & his wife Rosa as they await the birth of their first child in Florida. In the other we meet Gabriel & Manon, a young couple in Paris who just got engaged. The two stories play out decades apart, keeping the reader intrigued as we gradually discover how they are related.

This is the first in a popular French series featuring colourful characters who are the dregs of the Paris police force. While the crimes are serious, the story is full of dry offbeat humour. It’s just as much about these fallen heroes as it is about the cases & we gradually get the scoop on how each ended up an outcast.

The author loves her characters & she handles them with care. At first, they have much in common with the derelict apartment they’ve inherited…..abandoned, unwanted & a little worn around the edges. When Eva takes on redecorating the place (with some interesting choices) the others begin to contribute bits & pieces, unaware they’re creating a home that reflects their new “family”. These are people who were singled out in old jobs due to their mistakes. As they make progress on the cases, there’s a genuine esprit de corps that gradually develops as they learn to accept each others’ tics & foibles. As the apartment is transformed, so too are the detectives as they find a place where they no longer stand out for all the wrong reasons.

There are some great twists as the story lines converge. The old murders are just the tip of the iceberg & Anne & her crew are in for a few surprises. There’s a genuine warmth to this story of oddballs & it makes for a nice break from some of the grittier stuff. They’re an engaging bunch & here’s hoping Sam Gordon (who provides an excellent translation) is hard at work on book #2.

Thanks Quercus Books and netgalley for this ARC.

A group of misfits, rogues, or super cops in digues? Laugh out loud funny at times, this novel gives justice a new image.

The Awkward Squad is a quirky, off-beat crime novel, set in Paris. In some respects, it reminded me a little of the BBC series New Tricks (a cold case unit made up of misfits), but in other respects it was very much its own brand of oddness.

After a fatal shooting incident, Commissaire Anne Capestan is appointed head of the Awkward Squad (a French UCOS), where she has to overcome a series of setbacks, mainly the run-down offices and the rag-tag band of officers under her command. The book is written with pace and humour, and the character of Anne Capestan, and many of the other outcasts, is easy to warm to.

This is a wonderful offbeat translated French crime novel located in Paris. In 2012 Commissaire Anne Capestan is awaiting her fate, wondering if she will still have a job after her latest fatal shooting incident. Her boss, Buron, tells her she is cleared but she is to have a new role as the head of about 4o officers, all of whom are a rag tag bunch of failures, misfits and troublemakers, that they are unable to sack. The job of the awkward squad is to look into cold cases and try to solve them. Oddly enough, Anne is undaunted by this prospect.

The squad are located in some far flung, ill equipped, and run down office suite with neither the tools for the job or the power. In a difficult start, less than a handful of officers turn up, although it eventually goes up to around 10. It's a varied bunch such as Merlot, who is an alcoholic, Evrard is a compulsive gambler, Torrez is regarded as a malevolent curse as his partners have all had the most terrible misfortune befall them and no-one wants to work with him, Lebreton is gay in a prejudiced and discriminatory police force, and the lonely Rosier has made a fortune from writing about cops. Rosier and Lebreton look into the 1993 murder of Yann Guenon, an unemployed sailor. Anne steps up and partners Torrez to investigate the botched burglary that resulted in the murder of the elderly Marie Sauzelle. Despite the initial judgement of the team as less cold case and more basket case, our oddballs find comfort and support in each other to raise morale despite being mocked, sidelined and disowned by the official police hierarchy. Capestan begins to wonder if there is an ulterior motive in setting their unit up. Their investigations awaken a killer who strikes again as it becomes clear that the cases of Yann Guenon and Marie Sauzelle are both connected with a ferry disaster that took place off the coast of Florida years ago.

The novel is a great read, with a narrative that has terrific humour and heart. Once you start reading, you become gripped by the characters and the predicaments they find themselves in. They redecorate and equip their offices in a way that reflects them, including Rosier's dog, Pilou. It is barely surprising that it becomes more home than their actual homes to them. I am hoping this is the first of the series, I loved it that much. Highly recommended. Thanks to Quercus for an ARC.

The underlying operating added-on pleasure of this effective-enough if a bit muddled police procedural is that we are rooting for this team of 'rejected' police officers. Headed up by Capstan, a wild shooter who let loose at wrong time in her past (and so she's assigned here only without a gun - she has one at home though), a jinxed colleague whose colleagues find association to him lethal, a retired novelist who is also an officer (with small dog in tow), etc we want them to succeed in the cold cases they are assigned. Their anomalous presence sometimes helps them find what they seek since they are under the radar - sorry of unseen - and they solve cases. Everyone seems to follow different cases though, and that's where, for me, things fell down a little - got kind of confused. But I still read on, and I hope series will continue. Very entertaining.

I really enjoyed this book - it got a bit police procedural for me, after the original beginning, but I enjoyed the clear image of Paris and the distinctive characters. A few terms were difficult to get used to, the rankings of the officers for instance, but that was just a little bit. When it centered around the main characters it flowed really well.

I would like to thank Netgalley and MacLehose Press for an advance copy of The Awkward Squad, a Parisian police procedural.

Commissaire Anne Capestan has been suspended from duty for six months, pending an investigation into her shooting of an unarmed suspect. She is facing dismissal but to her surprise she is re-instated and put in charge of a new cold case department which will be the dumping ground for all officers they would like to but can't sack (think Mick Herron's Slow Horses). This ragtag team start with a couple of murders but soon discover there is more to both the murders and their setup than meets the eye.

I enjoyed The Awkward Squad. It is a fairly light read but the murders are well plotted and held my interest throughout. Initially I found the constant swapping between the two plotlines a bit annoying and distracting (the copy I have doesn't give any notice of the POV change) but I soon got used to it and enjoyed the contrast of styles and characters.

Much of the novel is taken up with the characters and their backstories of how they came to be on the squad and how they mesh together to become an effective team. It is a bit of a cliché of the career down and outs rising to the challenge but Ms Hénaff manages it with aplomb and draws the reader in with her inventive characters and light humour - it will take me a while to forget the memorable scene of a police pursuit in a street cleaning vehicle!

There is much to like in The Awkward Squad and it is a very pleasant read so I have no hesitation in recommending it as a good read.