Like Jean-Claude Izzo's One Helluva Mess, its 'companion' volume in Arcadia's continuing Eurocrime series, Manotti's prize-winning Rough Trade is set firmly in place and time.
Opening with a quote from the French daily Libération, we are quickly dropped into the Sentier garment district of Paris in 1980, seething with unrest as the predominantly illegal Turkish immigrants seek to gain some kind of legal status within their adopted country. Instrumental in the process is Soleiman, once a male prostitute, now finding a new sense of purpose and identity in organising the first strikes and protests. Then the body of a Thai child prostitute is found in one of the sweatshops. Also operating in the area is the Drugs Squad led by the educated, efficient and bisexual Inspector Daquin, looking for a "Turkish trail" as the first, purer, supplies of Middle Eastern heroin (from Iran, Pakistan and pre-Taliban Afghanistan) hit the Paris streets...
Unlike Izzo's reflective Inspector Montale however, Daquin is something of a cold fish. Whilst he conducts his investigation with flair, he has little or no life beyond the job, bar reading newspapers (for background) together with somewhat joyless bouts of sex with an obligated and unenthusiastic Soleiman.
Not that this detracts from the novel. Dominique Manotti is a professor of 19th century economic history and the major strength of her complex, well-plotted novel is its pace and documentary realism, a major concern the political and social forces at work both in and beyond the city. Not least amongst such forces are the police themselves. Written in thirty-odd chapters, each equivalent to a day's work, with key actions described and timed, we see Daquin's team sometimes abusing their power but slowly uncovering the connections that lead beyond Sentier to the world outside.
Like One Helluva Mess, the book seems well-translated, though Manotti's 'stunning virtuosity' in dialogue (quote from Le Point, Paris) is sometimes not apparent in the translation by Margaret Crosland and Elfreda Powell. But that should not deter you from seeking out this excellent novel.