The Obstinate
Confessions of the cop who digs up cold cases.
Raphaël Nedilko thought he was serving humanity when he devoted himself body and soul to the police force. A meticulous and tenacious investigator, he solved two cold cases after twenty-five and eighteen years of mystery (the Maillery and Blétry cases, two of the "A6 disappearances").
But paradoxically, his successes earned him enemies: someone who works hard and succeeds is a grain of sand in the well-oiled machine that must not be allowed to overdo it. While his superiors shunned the distress of the victims' families, he embraced it: their cause would become his own.
A fascinating dive into the long-term investigation of two cold cases, L'Obstiné also delivers a powerful but constructive indictment of an institution that is perishing from its own arrogance and inertia. With stubborn determination and great intelligence, Raphaël Nedilko points out the pitfalls that promise to bog down investigations from the outset. Because cold cases are not inevitable.
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Publication
March 22, 2022
Format
130 x 205 mm
320 pages
Price
19,90 €
ISBN
978-2-9582927-0-6
Diffuser
Excerpt
When I first glance at the thick Maillery file, I immediately like the smell that comes from it, in every sense of the word. It smells like "old-school policing," with yellowed paper tickets smelling of carbon.
In 2009, the trend is more like "no technical evidence? No investigation!" I regret that the means of investigation are taking precedence over our reasons for investigating, which are to find the truth, with or without machines, with or without scientific evidence.
I didn't become a police officer to turn into a computer scientist, and when it comes to ordinary crimes, it's better to mingle with "the people," like Columbo, thinking with your little brain cells, which is what I like to do. Nothing pleases me more than crisscrossing the field, my documents in the trunk of my car, in plain clothes, without any apparent authority or sophisticated tools. The only question that matters when "everything has been done" technically is: "What, humanly speaking, has not been done?" Will we have the courage to start all over again? To go and see people face to face?
In the Maillery case, I am delighted because I have no choice. Nothing was technically possible given the state of science at the time of the murder, and with the seals destroyed—something surprising for cases that are not time-barred—nothing ever will be. What remains is my will, and thousands of pages of which only carbon copies, faded by time, remain in the police archives.
Focus on the author
Raphaël Nedilko is a 50-year-old police officer and father of three. He is an investigator at the Chalon-sur-Saône police station, after seven years at 36 Quai des Orfèvres, where he learned everything, and eight years at the Dijon Criminal Investigation Department, mainly in the homicide unit. L’Obstiné is his first book.
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