Vincent Message's Debut Novel 'Les Veilleurs' Reviewed

Olivier Renault reviews Vincent Message's first novel 'Les Veilleurs', published by Éditions du Seuil. The story begins with a man named Nexus killing three people on Avenue Breton in the fictional city of Regson, then falling asleep on his victims. Among the dead is the mistress of Samuel Drake, the regional governor, who suspects a political conspiracy and orders a secret counter-investigation by Paulus Rilviero, a policeman with a murky past. Rilviero visits the Bentlam clinic and meets Dr. Joachim Traumfreund, a psychiatrist with an unconventional background blending psychiatry, antipsychiatry, and psychoanalysis. Traumfreund isolates Nexus in a mountain house called L'Aneph, shaped like a boat and built by a mad architect. There, Rilviero and Traumfreund listen to Nexus's strange account—he claims he killed because of his sleep. The novel explores questions about dreaming, sleep without REM, and whether Nexus is deceiving them. Renault praises the novel as erudite and controlled, with subtle literary references, though he notes some longueurs in the dream sequences. The review concludes that the investigation begins brilliantly.