REVIEW: Astrid: Murder In Paris (S3 E4/8)

Have the lunatics finally taken over the asylum? Astrid and Raph investigate a case in which all the witnesses are unreliable, and finding the truth requires Astrid to tackle her own demons.

When a murderous patient in a mental hospital, Lebel, is found dead, a headline captures the attention of the detective duo’s old nemesis Lamarck, the writer turned serial killer (S1E04, Chambre Close). But why does Lamarck think that Lebel’s death was not of natural causes, and what is his interest in the case?

Perhaps it’s because this death is not so much a ‘chambre close’ or locked room mystery, but a ‘chambre ouverte’ – Lebel was under restraint and under guard, yet the guard saw no-one enter the room. Nonetheless pathologist Fournier finds definitive proof that Lebel was suffocated, the method he used on his own victims.

With the hospital closed to outsiders, the pool of suspects seems limited to the staff and the patients. There’s a dodgy doctor and a hulking guard to consider, but Raph thinks that one of the patients is responsible. They all have assorted manias which might make them suspect, but also suggest they would not have been capable of carrying out a revenge killing alone.

Astrid unwisely visits Lamarck in his cell – he fancies himself as Moriarty to Astrid’s Sherlock Holmes, and they discuss Arthur Conan Doyle. But if the clue to the murder lies in one of Lamarck’s books, which one is it, and how did he have inside knowledge of Lebel’s crimes?

Astrid’s problem is that the atmosphere of the hospital reminds her of the institute to which she was committed after being expelled from school but despite it almost driving her to a breakdown, she persists in her investigations with Raph’s support.

With keen observation, Astrid puzzles out how the killing was accomplished; the lift was tampered with and details of the decoration changed so that the guard was actually on the wrong floor. (That doesn’t explain to us how the killer, Lucie, got into the secure room, or indeed how she had the knowledge to sabotage the lift. We’re pretty sure we’ve seen this trick in an episode of Mission: Impossible.) Lucie’s motive, that Lebel had killed her father, is revealed by details in one of Lamarck’s books – once again it’s a case of cherchez la femme, a mistress unrecorded in the police investigations, but who Lamarck had identified in his book research.

As a coda, Lamarck escapes from prison, calls Astrid and Raph to congratulate them on solving the case, and sends Astrid his new novel – La Chambre Ouverte, The Open Room.

There’s no mention of Tetsuo Tanaka in this episode, nor for that matter of any of Raph’s amours, or of Astrid’s tutor Mme Langlais, so the overarching story arcs are little advanced. Nonetheless, playfully subverting one of the classic scenarios of detective fiction, the locked room murder, while revisiting one of Astrid and Raphaëlle’s most compelling cases, this episode is certainly the best of the season so far, if a little implausible. It does serve to give us a little more insight into Astrid’s past, and perhaps will unlock some more potential for her future.

Chris Jenkins

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.