“I have never known how the world would differ had I not existed, nor toward what shores I would have driven it had I existed more intensely, and I cannot see how my passing will alter its movement. Here I am, walking along a trail whose absent pebbles lead me nowhere. I am becoming the point where life and death unite until they are indistinguishable, where the mask of the living man settles restfully in the face of the deceased. This morning, because the weather is clear, I can see all the way to me, and I am like everyone else. I am not putting an end to my existence but giving life to immortality. Ultimately, it is futile for me to write a final sentence that does not seek to change the moment.”

Having set down these words and sent the file to his editor, Victor Miesel, overcome by a piercing anxiety that he cannot identify, steps over the balcony, and falls from it. Or throws himself from it. He leaves no letter, but the whole book leads him to this ultimate gesture. “I am not putting an end to my existence but giving life to immortality.” It is April 22, 2021, at twelve noon.

From “The Anomaly” by Hervé Le Tellier

A well-written novel with a clever plot and multiple exciting stories. The prose is magnificent, “Here I am, walking along a trail whose absent pebbles lead me nowhere. I am becoming the point where life and death unite until they are indistinguishable, where the mask of the living man settles restfully in the face of the deceased.” The book is so well crafted and entertaining that one can disregard the lack of plausible explanation for the fictional scientific event and its convolute ending.