Jean-Christophe Rufin, the last novel ("The Scent of Adam") had led us to the pursuit of eco-dangerous terrorists, starts here in a field that is becoming very fashionable in the literature of recent years : Islamist terrorism. We find "Providence" 'private intelligence service led by Archie, a James Bond has the most aging comfortable directing from an office and in the field.
As in "The Parfum d'Adam", a young doctor (but not the same as in his previous novel, it is called Dimitri) is sent to the field to s''infiltrer from Nouakchott to Mauritanian doctors to spy on them and report any suspicious activity. Jean-Christophe Rufin s''inspire his own experience, since he himself has worked not only in the humanitarian but also for the secret services. It would, it seems (to 'after the number of "Read" of May 2010), the DGSE helped to track down the men of al-Qaeda after the killing of French nationals in Mauritania.
But the key figure in this story, it ''s Jasmine, a young French diplomat widow who travels to Mauritania, in the heart of the desert, to meet Kader, a trafficker who protects travelers and desert dwellers against Finance . Kader also maintains friendships with members of a katiba ... 'Who is Jasmine, torn between two cultures, between two completely incompatible worlds, and what are his motivations? It ''s the novel that will teach us ...
A bit like with Jean-Christophe Grange, Jean-Christophe Rufin, one has the impression of being in the hands of quelqu''un dominates his subject, and is led in confidence to ' one end to the other of the planet, admiring the geopolitical knowledge author. Do not read Rufin for its style, any, (he claims to be elsewhere as a storyteller in the tradition of Alexander Dumas) but we have a good time with this rather smoothly conducted and satisfying thriller, even if the heroine of "Scent of Adam", Juliette, was a slightly better job than that of character Jasmine, which ultimately we still quite lointain'e ...