• The man who painted souls
  Metin Arditi
  Ed. Grasset, June 2021

Acre, Jewish Quarter, 1078. Avner, who is fourteen, fishes with his father. On the occasion of a delivery to a monastery, his gaze falls on an icon. It is dazzling. “This is not a portrait but a sacred object,” said the superior of the monastery to him. “You don’t paint an icon, you write it, and you can only do it by having a deep faith. “.
Avner will never stop being able to “write”. And too bad if he does not have faith, he acts as if, acquires the techniques, learns the sacred texts, is baptized, leaves his family. Mansour, a Muslim traveling merchant, takes him under his wing. It is the occasion of a marvelous initiatory journey from Acre to Nazareth, from Caesarea to Jerusalem, then to Bethlehem, to the monastery of Mar Saba, in the middle of the Judean desert, where Avner remains ten years where he becomes the one of the greatest iconographers of Palestine.
Refusing to bind himself to the rigid canons of the Church which oblige us to represent only God and the saints, he dares to reproduce the faces of people of ordinary life, seeking in each being his share of the divine, his beauty. It’s a triumph, it’s a scandal. Does he think he is a prophet? He is driven out, his work is burnt. What will be the final fate of a man who dared to challenge the established order?
The novel of the artist who, against and against all established orders, tries to bring grace to the world.

• L’Ecole des Chats: Volume 1, Le Secret de la Grotte de Cristal; Volume 2, The Magic Gift; Volume 3, The prophecy comes true
  Jin-kyeong kim
  Ed. Picquier Jeunesse, October 2007

Funny school, this Cat School, where it is highly recommended to play during the lessons, and where we learn the history of cats and magic! A new pupil in Cristal’s class, Brin d’Osier soon became very friends with Mandragore, a tall tomcat proud of his muscles, and Mot-d’Amour, a lovely and mischievous cat. However, a mysterious place attracts them more than anything: The Crystal Cave, where is locked the dreaded Black Cat, the king of the shadow cats who threaten to engulf the world in darkness. One day, the three friends take up the challenge: it is no more and no less, to enter the forbidden cave! Here they are, cautiously entering the cave from which they hear creepy moans …

• The Office of Occult Affairs
  Eric Fouassier
  Ed. Albin Michel, April 2021

Autumn 1830, in a feverish Paris still reeling from the Revolutionary Days of July, the government of Louis-Philippe, the new king of the French, tried to curb a divided but virulent opposition.
Valentin Verne, a young inspector of the service of morals, is transferred to the security brigade founded a few years earlier by the famous Vidocq. He must elucidate a series of strange deaths likely to destabilize the regime.
Because the science which progresses, mixed with the esotericism then in vogue, inspires a new type of criminality. Passionate about chemistry and medicine, cultivating a taste for the mysterious and the irrational, Valentin Verne knows how to decipher their codes. Appointed by the prefect at the head of the “office of occult affairs”, a special service responsible for tracking down these modern criminals, he will give proof of his extraordinary skills.
But who really is this lonely policeman, obsessed with hunting down an elusive criminal known only by the nickname of the Vicar?
Who is hiding behind this angelic face where sometimes a disconcerting ferocity pierces?
Who is the hunter, who is the game?

In the lineage of the great detectives of History, from Vidocq to Lecoq via Nicolas le Floch, a new hero was born.

• Of the war. Mook 1
  Jean Lopez
  Ed. Perrin, June 2021

In 168 pages, De la guerre offers a beautiful historical palette. Did Hitler have a chance to win? This is the question of the central issue around which grapple Jean Lopez, Benoist Bihan, Nicolas Aubin and two great British historians, Richard Overy and Andrew Roberts.
While this dossier is extensive (30 pages), it does not overshadow the other articles.
A sound archive of Captain Paul-Alain Léger – a real character from a novel – gives us an understanding of the underlying springs of the most incredible intoxication operation ever carried out: “bleuite” during the Algerian war.
The most talented of French computer graphics designers, Nicolas Guillerat, offers an unprecedented graphic comparison between the three great battles of the Hundred Years War: Crécy, Poitiers, Azincourt, and everything becomes bright.
China and India clash in the Himalayas in 1962, and one of the greatest photo-reporters
war, Larry Burrows, captures the images of a war in a rarefied atmosphere: it is the subject of a magnificent portfolio.
Marshal Grouchy, interviewed by a journalist from Le Monde, explains in person the reasons for his fiasco in Waterloo: “Suddenly, joyful, he said:” Grouchy! “- It was Blücher”.
The expression “fog of war” is attributed to Clausewitz, but in reality it is the result of a misinterpretation that hides a serious mistake which the United States has paid the price, and us with: it is the object of this “concept” section written by Benoist Bihan.
How and why between the 15th and 17th centuries, the soldier received a precise uniform, loaded with symbols and particular functions: it is this revolution in appearance that Dominique Prévot, curator at the Army Museum, deciphers.
“If God grants us the grace to lose again such a battle, Your Majesty can count that his enemies are destroyed”. So said Marshal Villars to the Sun King on the evening of the Battle of Malplaquet. With an alert pen, Clément Oury tells how yet another defeat conceded to Marlborough actually saves the kingdom.
Professor François Cadiou regales us with crossed portraits of Hannibal and Scipio and, through the life of these two masters of war, dismantles the two engines of the fight to the death between Rome and Carthage.
In a drawn-out uchronia, Emmanuel Hecht wonders if the fate of France would not have been completely upset by the victory of the Fronde.
Finally, Thierry Lentz and Jean Lopez strive, in a crossed interview, to show how Napoleon’s Russian campaign and Hitler’s are alike, and how they differ.
De la guerre ends with a series of interviews with authors who present their work to be published in the second half of 2021: military history, historical novel and thriller, History comics …

• The Crazy Surveys of Magritte and Georgette: Name of a pipe!
  Nadine Monfils
  Ed. Robert Laffont, May 2021

It was at the time when Brussels was in Brussels …
At the tram stop, the famous painter René Magritte, ball hat, dark suit and pipe in his mouth, has a strange vision: a young woman in a flowered dress, standing next to her body! He talks about it to Georgette, his wife, and immortalizes the scene in a painting. A few days later, this woman is found murdered, with a scented love letter in her bag and a bouquet of lilacs under her dress.

• The Crazy Surveys of Magritte and Georgette: In Knokke-le-Zoute!
  Nadine Monfils
  Ed. Robert Laffont, June 2021

A series of unpublished investigations carried out by the painter René Magritte and his wife, Georgette. With the North Sea as the last vacant lot … Holidays at last, direction Knokke-le-Zoute! The painter Magritte and his wife Georgette are preparing to savor the pleasures of the Belgian coast: rides in a cuistax, shrimp croquettes and mussels and fries. But before that, they enjoy the beach, well installed in their deckchair. A little further, the barking of their dog Loulou signal the end of idleness. Scratching in the sand, she dug up a hand. A godsend for René and Georgette who will indulge in their secret pleasure: to hunt down the murderer.

You can order the books presented by Gérard Collard by going to the online bookstore website Black claw.