Book Reviews – The Anomaly

The Anomaly
by Herve Le Tellier

Le Tellier starts this story with a contract killer and then the reader meets a series of unconnected characters. A lawyer, an author, an architect – all living their lives, falling in love, writing a novel and so on, and it left me wondering what the connection was. Then we find that they were all on an Air France flight from Paris to New York. The plane was badly damaged in a freak storm, but the plane landed and the passengers were fine and continued with their lives. The ‘aha’ moment happens three months later when the same plane lands in New York with the same people on board … exactly the same. The plane was somehow duplicated during the storm and when the second plane lands, this naturally sends the world into a spin. Are aliens involved? Was it a wormhole? Is God playing games or are we all characters in a giant programme? This plot twist and the ramifications are fascinating. The Anomaly is clever and gripping, and has won the Prix Goncourt, a prize in French literature which is awarded to the best and most imaginative prose work of the year.