The Godmother by Hannelore Cayre

Most members found this novel a cracking yarn with some great dark humour. Some of us were a bit dubious about the main character’s lack of morality but others just enjoyed living on the wild side for a while. Some of us had seen the film which is doing the rounds at the moment but as it misses some great comic scenes please read the book first.

Translated from the French, the novel tells the story of Patience Portefeux, 50, who works as an Arabic interpreter in the Paris police department and spends most of her time translating tapped phone calls between drug dealers who are often not the brightest tools on the shelf. She is poorly paid and can only get casual work which makes caring for her mother in an old people’s home difficult. She has no retirement plan but reminisces about her own extravagant childhood and dreams of offering her two daughters a better future after their financially strapped upbringing. ‘Patience’ has clearly run out of it.

Coming from the wrong side of the tracks herself, Patience's moral compass is that of a survivor who has clawed her way back to a conventional life after her crime boss husband dies early, leaving her with two small children to raise. Listening to the tapes, she becomes interested in the lives of one North African family who are offering a “paddock to plate” service of the finest illicit substances. When she finds out that one of them is working in her mother’s nursing home and cares about her mother’s treatment, she helps them out in turn by warning them when a drug bust is imminent.

Through a turn of affairs which is greatly helped by the fact that she can understand Arabic and the police can’t, she ends up with a large haul of hash and a list of contacts she can turn into customers.

And so The Godmother is born and we spend a rollicking time exploring France’s underbelly. For those of you who think a novel written from the criminal’s point of view is a step too far, be assured that Patience turns from crime in the end in ways which neatly tidies up all loose ends and leaves us feeling sympathetic to her. In the process, the author explores some of the injustices, cynicism and hypocrisy of the legal and social system in France (and elsewhere) with some entertaining characters and snappy dialogue. Most of us gave this book 9 out of 10, although we were left pondering if, pushed too far and given the opportunity, would we, too, join the underworld.

Who is Hannelore Cayre?

Hannelore Cayre, 58, is a French novelist, screenwriter and director, while also being a criminal lawyer. She lives in Paris.

Her first novel, Commis d’office, was published in 2004. It was followed by three more.

The Godmother, translated by Stephanie Smee, was first published in France 2017 as La Daronne. It received the 2019 European Crime Fiction Prize, the 2019 Grand Prix de Literature Policiere and the 2020 CWA Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger Award.

It is now a major film staring Isabelle Huppert.

In 2020 Hannelore followed this success with Richesse oblige which has been translated by Stephanie Smee into The Inheritors.