[Cecil Younger 04] • La mort et le langage du bonheur

Cecil Younger is a private investigator who takes comfort in the absurdity of

the universe. And the universe is obliging him with a joint phone call from

his lawyer and his shrink to convey a message from another client: Someone

will pay Cecil well to get rid of a problem… by killing a man. Though the bank

is about to foreclose on the house he shares with the autistic Toddy, Cecil

knows he's not the man for this job. Common sense tells him that murder just

isn't a good career move. But he does need the money, so Cecil decides to meet

his potential client. Ninety-seven-year-old William Flynn is none too clear on

what's happened this week, but he's razor-sharp on the events of eight decades

past. What's happened this week is the murder of Angela Rameriez, a young

woman who used to visit Flynn in the nursing home where he resides. And the

subsequent discovery in Flynn's room of the gun used to kill her—which makes

him the prime suspect. Flynn wants Cecil Younger to find, and kill, the man he

believes is responsible for Angela's murder: her husband Simon Delaney. Cecil,

his shrink, and Flynn's attorney all figure it may help Flynn's defense to

find Delaney, so Cecil sets out on the trail. It leads him from a rough-and-

tumble Aleutian Island town to the perilous streets of Seattle, from the

pathetic murder of a drunken woman in a cheap hotel to a decades-old slaughter

that is still reaching into the present. And its dark and chilly grasp may

extend to Cecil Younger himself…