The saga of the Sangaré continues in the third volume of Saint-Elme but is the cocktail between laughter and crime still there? 
The screenwriter Serge Lehman continues the guided tour of the village of Saint-Elme by describing this mountain tourism resort. We discover the luxurious accommodations of the Sax family. They bought the mineral water bottling plant, the village's source of income and fame. Their thirst for purchase then concerned the port, hotels and thermal baths. The more the reader advances in the series, the more he discovers this family. It directs illegal trafficking in the region. We met twins Tania and Stan in the first volume, parents and grandfather Roland in the second. The conflicts are numerous because the father refuses to sign the children's project despite the insistence of Jansky, the director of the bottling plant. This volume helps us understand the reasons for this intergenerational hatred. Through this family, we leave the valley because it is in a professional and family relationship with a Russian oligarch. The Sax find in front of them the Sangaré family, the true heroes of Saint-Elme. Kidnapped and tortured, Franck Sangaré seeks to escape. The finale of the previous volume showed his brother Philippe landing in Saint-Elme to find him. The cartoonist Frederik Peeters has a lot of style: he wears a black suit, a long jacket of the same color and an afro cut. This authority is also seen by his sense of observation: boxes insist on a bodily detail of the people around him that he seems to scan with his eyes to find the slightest clue. In Saint-Elme, we follow in parallel the inhabitants of an inn, the Vache Brûlée. Franck's colleague, Dombré hides Sax in the chalet. The owner Arthur Spielmann is able to predict the weather to the second, the tenant Romane Mertens learns the shooting with the shepherd Paco while his father remains cloistered in his room and chatting with an empty chair. These different protagonists continue to cross paths in the small village. This scriptwriting trick by Serge Lehman allows you to move from one action to another in a fluid way and brings rhythm.
Twin Peaks in the Alps
The reader of St. Elmo is disturbed by some incongruous situations. How can Franck and Philippe Sangaré be so different? Philippe is black, his silent and imperturbable character makes him appear totally master of himself. He is meticulous and knows how to follow a lead. On the other hand, his white brother plays the role of an investigator but had multiplied the blunders in the previous volumes. The answers are given over the pages and the strange becomes logical. The mafia atmosphere of Saint-Elmo is shaken by the intrusion of the fantastic. Franck, is guided by invasive frogs. Signs appear without explanation on the walls of the cottages. A young girl seems to be reading nature's secret messages. The fantasy of St. Elmo is sometimes disturbing but above all hilarious as the presence of Arno Cavaliéri. The disappearance of this son of a good family is the cause of the arrival of Franck Sangaré. However, he did not get lost in the forest but plunged into crime by his uncontrolled drug use. He takes everything and especially anything and in the worst situations. This strangeness is reinforced by the colorization of Frederik Peeters. He contrasts a realistic vision of the mountain with monochromes in the basements. He knows how to play admirably on inking to create depth to his drawing. The Saint-Elme series is on the right track by showing rural crime but also the strangeness hidden in this space. This series published by Delcourt is a treasure hunt for the reader. We try to understand the fantastic elements that over the pages turn out to be essential clues. This investigation also involves colorful characters in every sense of the word. You can find on these links a chronicle on the second volume of the series and La Brigade chimérique, another series by Serge Lehman
