Beyond the news item.

We can not leave this book, once it has started. Is it only because of the story we know inspired by a true resounding? Voyeurism somehow?
While this may, at first, motivate reading, the novel takes us much further. The purely anecdotal interest is foiled from the first page: the outcome is revealed there. We are not in a detective novel.
Because "the enemy" is the Devil. E. No. Carrère poured into obscurantist beliefs, but in the manner of a Bernanos, it raises the problem of evil: the criminal is one of us, part of us, evil comes from a rather ridiculous gear causalities.
The writing is thoroughly modern, ranging from several genres (novel autobiographical reportage analysis????), Displaying his indecision: Romand is not a monster though his acts were terrible, the narrator himself remains perplexed whoever as a great novelist, shapes its own character, endlessly perhaps because it is not sure that his last attitude is not a new posture. Fiction novel about as much as the murder. Thinking about the ambiguity.
Among journalists, judges and prison visitors so (too) generous, the reader is invited to build their own judgment. Troubled, he must be to escape the cliches.
The seemingly simple voice, modest narrator-author (his name E. Carrere), relating the steps of his business interruptions and hesitations of its assessment on the character, gives the work a tone of deep humanity.