Article in La Voix du Nord 01/11/24 :

Cambrai author Benoît Ver-Elst will be signing books this Saturday at the Majuscule bookstore.

This Saturday, January 13, the Majuscule Bonduelle bookstore welcomes the author Benoît Ver-Elst for a signing session of his first book "Automédon, les chauffeurs du Cambrésis", a historical thriller set during the First Empire in Cambrai.

The story of the novel takes place in Cambrai in the 19th century. - VDN

By Claude Lienard (local press correspondent)

Published: January 11, 2024 at 10:33 a.m. Reading time: 2 min Share: NEWSLETTER

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Benoît Ver-Elst Benoît was born in 1969 in Amiens. After touring France in the hotel and restaurant industry, he returned to Cambrai, where his parents were merchants, and opened a restaurant there before teaching as a cooking teacher. From a young age, he was drawn to history and developed a true passion for the period of the First Empire. It was in Cambrai, this city of art and history with a rich past, and after extensive research, that he created this first regional historical novel.

The story takes place in the early years of the 19th century, when Napoleon I reigned over France. A band of bandits, led by the Flahaut brothers, set the region ablaze with extreme savagery. These "foot drivers" tortured their victims by burning their feet to force them to confess where the family loot was hidden. Dirk Borman, a young journalist at "La Feuille hebdomadaire de l'arrondissement de Cambrai," devotes most of his time to investigating these thugs, even at the risk of his own life and those of his loved ones. Why such relentlessness on his part? What secret motivates his hatred of these murderers and thieves? Will the hunt carried out by Sergeant Oudaille prove effective?

Most of the facts, places, people, and events are true. For example, the newspaper "La Feuille hebdomadaire de l'arrondissement de Cambrai" was founded in 1804 by Jean-François Hurez, a printer-bookseller at the Bible d'Or on the Grand-Place in Cambrai.

Benoît Ver-Elst book signing session, Saturday, January 13 from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Majuscule Bonduelle bookstore, 14 rue Henri de Lubac in Cambrai. Author's Facebook page: Benoît Ver-Elst-Auteur