Catelli intrigues but does not convince. The ratio of conjecture to fact is heavily in favour of the former. He cites no official reports of the accident and simply states that there was a cover-up ordered by French Intelligence who also wanted to silence Camus. Catelli never wonders why an operation requiring twenty-four-hour surveillance of Camus’s house was thought easier to mount in a quiet French village with nosy neighbours than in anonymous Paris.
Sound intriguing? Conspiracy theories always have their allure. Yet not only does The Death of Camus not offer any evidence for its claims, it is so badly written throughout as to discredit itself immediately. Catelli’s prose makes Dan Brown’s look good. He piles on the adjectives, overstates every claim. He is particularly fond of calling upon “fate”. “Fate’s machinations are often evanescent, random and fleeting, suddenly coalescing as if by magic...” he tells us, like an arsey astrologer. You would not trust someone who writes as dreadfully as this to tell you how to boil an egg.
