Today is the summer solstice. So the official or astronomical first day of summer, although in my book the season truly starts with the month of June. Be that as it may, we're in a heatwave, with temperatures going up to 30 degrees today. And it is the longest day of the year. The horror, the horror. I don't like summertime, I don't like long days and I don't like heat. I know, I'm a strange beast, I'm weird, but I know I'm not alone. So yes, I am not really in a great mood today. If only it was a cool and rainy day, it would be bearable, but no. There is one thing, and truly one thing I like about the solstice: once it is over, it means that the days are going to get shorter and shorter. It's going to be long until we feel it, but it gives me some level of solace.
Sunday, 21 June 2026
Fête des Pères
C'est aujourd'hui la fête des Pères, que je fête depuis 2016, quand ma femme m'a offert une carte avec une photo du phoetus qui allait devenir notre petit loup. Il prépare avec sa mère quelque chose, je ne sais pas quoi. Sans doute au moins une carte, ils me donnent toujours une carte à la fête des Pères, toujours très élaborée parce que Wolfie a pleins d'idées. Mais j'ai souvent eu des cadeaux: des bas, des livres, du thé, etc. Je me fais gâter, disons. Alors donc, je me demande ce que ce sera cette année.
Saturday, 20 June 2026
Brighton Rock (Cocktail)
Voir à 360 degrés
Friday, 19 June 2026
Blackjack (Signature Weapon)
This is my new post in the Signature Weapons series. Today's weapon is an oldie: the blackjack. I don't think I have seen one in real life, but they do pop up from time to time in old crime fiction stories, generally in pulp stories. Generally wielded, as far as I remember, by villains, when they knock the hero unconscious with one. Because yes, it's a bludgeoning weapon. It's quite a nasty one too, from what I read, as it is capable of causing permanent injuries, even death. So don't let its small size fool you. Because it can easily be concealed, I can easily see it making a come back. I still think the blackjack fits a villain more than a hero. That said, I must make a confession here: there is one think I love about blackjack, and that its name. It just sound elegant and cool. Like the eponymous card game (which I think I played once or twice), it just has a sort of posh aura, in complete contrast with its true nature. This is another why I think it would fit a crime story nicely and enhances its atmosphere somehow.
Dixie (Harmonium)
Parce que c'est notre Fête nationale bientôt, je crois que c'est le temps de partager des chansons québécoises. Je suis encore en deuil de Serge Fiori depuis l'an dernier, alors je partage une toune d'Harmonium. Je dis toune à dessein, comme vous le savez si vous avez déjà écouté Dixie. Une chanson festive qui est quant à moi incontournable le 24 juin.
Thursday, 18 June 2026
Spy Secret Messages
Où est passé le lièvre?
Wednesday, 17 June 2026
Man On Fire
Well, here I am, plugging another spy thriller, and another Netflix series. This time it's Man on Fire. I started it very recently, so I'm not sure if the series will hold on, but so far so good. It's about a former CIA operative who has to protect the orphaned daughter of his assassinated mentor from terrorists. It's set in Brazil and, like I said, so far so good. Nothing terribly original, but nothing horrible either, the plot keeps me invested in it. I know it's freely adapted from a novel from A.J. Quinnell and that it was already adapted in a 2004 movie, which I haven't seen, so the story is all new to me. If I am still satisfied when I finish it, I might buy the novel. Anyway, if you read the source material, or watched any of its adaptations, let me know in the comments. Please no spoilers.
On parle des Bouquinistes
Petite nouvelle à propos d'une nouvelle qui maintenant date un peu (très peu, mais quand même un peu). Je l'ai apprise par le biais de la page Facebook des Bouquinistes: on a écrit un article dans la grosse Presse sur eux. Plus précisément, sur leur transformation en librairie coopérative. Enfin bref, j'en recommande la lecture. Je suis un client assidu des Bouquinistes. Enfin, quand je vivais au Saguenay. Je me rappelle quand la librairie n'était guère plus grosse qu'un comptoir et deux pièces, l'une un espace plus petit pour la section jeunesse. Je suis heureux qu'ils aient encore pignon sur rue à Chicoutimi, même si je ne peux pas les visiter avec la même assiduité.
Tuesday, 16 June 2026
A book about volcanoes
La St-Jean (et un peu de Paul Piché)
Monday, 15 June 2026
8 Pints of Milk
Here is a little anecdote for you. I had to buy eight pints of milk for the school's fayre last Saturday. To pour in coffee and tea (patently absurd in tea, but I digress). I thought it was too much milk for what we needed, but since I was tasked to do it, I did it. So I stopped at the local Sainsbury's in the morning. They were out of semi-skimmed milk bottles of the right size. So I asked one of the employees there. He asked me to give him less than five minutes and in the meantime, he told me where the find the other bits and bots I had to buy. A really helpful guy. I thought he would come back late telling me they were completely out of stock, but no. Within five minutes, on the dot, he was walking with the milk bottles. As I always like to show my gratitude for helpful staff, I told him he was a man of his word. he replied: "If I was not a man of my word, what kind of man would I be?" Which I think deserves to be a new great unknown line. I might use it in my writing one day, in any case I thought I'd share it on the blog. But yes, eight pints of milk was way too much.
Lecture sur le quai
Sunday, 14 June 2026
Shiny Gems
La devanture de William Walter
Saturday, 13 June 2026
Lying Book Cover (87th Precinct)
La Cabane Lulu
Friday, 12 June 2026
"Shark Bites"
Thursday, 11 June 2026
The chill in the air
Sometimes, one counts his blessings, knowing it will not last. We had one dreadful heatwave and another one is forecast, starting this weekend. But since the end of the last one, we had surprisingly cool weather. With lots of rain, but not only rain: I actually had to wear long sleeve shirts and light jumpers to stay warm. It struck me a few days ago: my wife had opened the bedroom windows, it made the whole place feeling chilly and cool, and oh so fresh, it truly felt wonderful. Almost autumnal, although not quite (my favourite season has a different smell). Still, it made me forget that summer has only started. I'm really enjoying this.
Les longues journées d'école
Je n'envie pas Wolfie ces jours-ci. Dans les semaines d'été (parce que bon, juin c'est l'été) qui mènent aux vacances, c'est de plus en plus pénible d'aller à l'école et de devoir y passer ses journées, beau temps mauvais temps. Je me rappelle de moi à son âge, comme les vacances semblaient s'éloigner à mesure qu'on s'en rapprochait. Au moins, lorsque j'étais enfant, on terminait l'année scolaire beaucoup plus tôt, à environ un mois d'avance. Donc, je ne l'envie pas, parce que je vois comme il trouve le temps long.
Wednesday, 10 June 2026
"Mad about... Sharks"
Limoilou
Tuesday, 9 June 2026
The Hunted (Elmore Leonard)
Un vrai orage
Monday, 8 June 2026
Seeing a Deer
We saw a rare sight a few days ago, last Thursday n fact, when we picked up Wolfie from school. We were walking back to the car when we saw a shape moving, like running in the alleyways. At first I thought it was a dog, but then we saw it was a small deer. I tried to take a picture, without any luck: the deer was just way too fast. He ran from the alleyway to a park near the school, disappeared a moment out of sight, then ran back towards us, jumped away on a front garden, then he ran further away and disappeared. And that was it. Apparently, there have been sighting of a similar animal, maybe the same, elsewhere in town. It could be a muntjac, possibly, at least it has been speculated. I will keep you posted if we see the critter again and I will try to take a snapshot this time.
Gâteaux
Sunday, 7 June 2026
FCB Coffee
Here is one happy discovery we made during our stay in Brighton. I noticed it when we set foot in the train station: I saw a Flying Coffee Bean, or FCB Coffee stand. I thought at first it was a Flying Bean Café, which I always liked. But no, it's a completely different company. On the way back home, we stopped there for a drink and a snack for the journey. I love discovering these kinds of shops when I travel by train. Not necessarily big chains, but smaller ones which makes a railway station a little bit different than the others. It's one of the little things I enjoy when travelling.
Pizz@ïoli?
Looking for Devil's Peak
You may remember that I have been desperately looking for the TV series adaptation of Deon Meyer's Devil's Peak. I love his crime thrillers and of course I want to see all the adaptations of his work on the screen, whether they are movies or series. South Africa is such a great atmospheric setting for crime dramas and seeing it on screen adds a new perspective to the experience, like an extra layer. I thought it would screen on the BBC, eventually, but apparently it never did. I recently did a Google search and thought I could find it on Tubi, but again, no: it's available in the US and Canada, but not in the UK. I have started to wonder whether I should just subscribe to a streaming service that has it.
Les longs dimanches
Tout d'abord, un lieu commun: nous sommes aujourd'hui dimanche. Comment va votre dimanche? Est-il court ou long? Je transformerai peut-être cette question en question existentielle un de ces quatre, mais je voulais juste faire une observation sur les dimanches. J'ai des rapports ambivalents avec dimanche: c'est encore la fin de semaine, mais comme c'est aussi le dernier jour de la fin de semaine, à mesure que le temps passe, on sent pointer le lundi qui s'en vient. Dimanche est souvent monotone et mélancolique. Il l'était quand j'étais enfant en tout cas. Et il semblait alors très long. En même temps, si on avait un dimanche actif, avec beaucoup d'activités, il passait vite, il semblait court et alors la fin de semaine terminait trop vite. Donc, d'une certaine façon, je préférais parfois m'ennuyer un peu le dimanche, pour que le temps ne passe pas trop vite.
Saturday, 6 June 2026
An Evening of Murder (pulp style)
Préparer la Saint-Jean
Friday, 5 June 2026
Glock (Signature Weapon)
This is a new post in my Signature Weapons series, about weapons that say something about the characters using them, especially but not exclusively in crime fiction. So today I am blogging about the Glock. This is the very first firearm of the series. And before I go further, a disclaimer: I know almost nothing of firearms, I'm not a gun enthusiast by any stretch of the imagination, I don't have a gun fetish either, so I am writing this as a complete outsider, but as an aspiring crime fiction writer. Now, I find Glocks interesting for a number of reasons: thematically, symbolically and practically. First, it is the service weapon of many police forces in the world, including the SQ (Sûreté du Québec). So this is often the weapon of choice of my characters. According to the TV Tropes entry on handguns, it has the reputation of being the boring but practical gun of all boring, but practical guns. It's reliable without being flashy. Also, it's an Austrian weapon, and the name is very close to the German Glocke, which means bell. I find it ironic that a weapon is thus linked to something often seen as delicate and playful, used to produce music. And yes, I am working to use this double entendre in couple of stories.
La collection de cocottes
Thursday, 4 June 2026
Panda Babyccino
Chinoiseries (mot du jour)
Wednesday, 3 June 2026
A Spy at War
Pâté chinois (une idée pour la Saint-Jean)
Tuesday, 2 June 2026
Brussels, city of espionage
This post is another one from my city of espionage series, talking of cities in the world closely associated with espionage and intelligence services. And today I chose one who may be lesser known in that regard. I am talking of course of Brussels. The capital city of Belgium and the administrative centre of the European Union, it is a city of vital geopolitical importance. Therefore it makes sense that Brussels is also a centre of international espionage. Yet, we don't really see it in fiction. I am not (yet) a connoisseur of spy thrillers, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember Brussels being featured in spy novels or movies. Or TV series. I don't even remember Brussels being mentioned, even in passing. I visited it once, years and years ago, and while I thought it looked like a nice enough city, I didn't see it as a paerticularly glamorous or exotic one, let alone a suitable place for gritty espionage dramas. But I think it deserves more recognition and it deserves to be featured more often in spy thrillers.
Dunkin Donuts revient au Québec
Bon, je suis en retard sur les nouvelles, mais je tenais à le souligner: Dunkin Donuts revient au Québec. Enfin, il va être de retour dans quelques mois, si tout va bien. C'est une excellente nouvelle: j'ai toujours plus été Dunkin que Tim Hortons. Tim, que l'on appelait avec dédain Ti-Motton dans ma jeunesse (même ceux qui en mangeaient), c'était le second venu, c'était l'usurpateur. L'affaire qui a réussi à s'imposer que lorsque Dunkin Donuts a commencé à avoir des problèmes, d'abord, puis avec une série de publicités débiles que j'ai toujours détestée. En fait, les pubs de Tims étaient insultantes. Celles de Dunkin avaient Claire Pimparé, bon. Ce qui suffit pour aimer la marque. Non, sans rire, je trouve que la localisation de Dunkin a toujours été meilleure, ce qui explique leur succès initial et mon affection pour la marque. Donc, j'espère que Dunkin aura à nouveau du succès au Québec.

























