"His books are all action, unfolding with a laconic efficiency that
would make his killers proud."-The Economist Businessman Georges
Gerfaut witnesses a murder-and is pursued by the killers. His
conventional life knocked off the rails, Gerfaut turns the tables
and sets out to track down his pursuers. Along the way, he learns a
thing or two about himself. . . . Manchette-masterful stylist,
ironist, and social critic-limns the cramped lives of professionals
in a neoconservative world. "Manchette has appropriated and
subverted the classic thriller [with] descriptions of undiluted
action, violence and suspense [and] a perspective on evil, a
disenchanted world of manipulation and fury. . . ."-Times Literary
Supplement "The petty exigencies of the classic thriller find
themselves summarily reduced to cremains by the fiery blue jets of
Jean-Patrick Manchette's concision, intelligence, tension, and
style."-Jim Nisbet, author of Lethal Injection and Prelude to a
Scream "Manchette is a must for the reading lists of all noir fans.
. . . Manchette deserves a higher profile among noir
fans."-Publishers Weekly "Manchette . . . performs miracles within
this simple story. His style is very matter of fact, stark and
almost cool like the jazz his hero or anti-hero Gerfaut devours at
every opportunity. Yet in this short novel there is no lack of
atmosphere, excitement, characters or descriptive writing, it is
just the total lack of unnecessary material that makes the story
seem so lean and mean."-Norman Price, EuroCrime "A social satire
cum suspense equally interested in dissecting everyday banalities
and manufacturing thrills. Writing with economy, deadpan irony, and
an eye for the devastating detail, Manchette spins pulp fiction
into literature."-Kirkus Reviews "While there isn't much that's
obviously moral-in the good-versus-evil sense-[this novel]
demonstrate[s] why Manchette is hailed as the man who kicked the
French crime novel or 'polar' out of the apolitical torpor into
which it had fallen by the time he started publishing his
'neo-polars' in the 1970s. . . . Grim and cerebral as they feel,
it's remarkable how comic-in an absurdist, laugh-or-you'll-cry
way-these books are, as if Manchette had decided that poking fun at
the products of the capitalist system were the fittest way to
attack the system itself."-Jennifer Howard, Boston Review "The pace
is fast, the action sequences are superb, and the effect is just as
striking as it must have been when the book was first published in
1976."-Laura Wilson, The Guardian "[T]he novel is brilliantly
written, replete with allusions to art, literature, and music,
papered with the very texture and furniture of our lives. Manchette
is Camus on overdrive, at one and the same time white-hot,
ice-cold. He deserves much the same attention."-James Sallis,
Review of Contemporary Fiction Jean-Patrick Manchette (1942-1995)
rescued the French crime novel from the grip of stodgy police
procedurals-restoring the noir edge by virtue of his post-1968
leftism. Today, Manchette is a totem to the generation of French
mystery writers who came in his wake. Jazz saxophonist, political
activist, and screen writer, Manchette was influenced as much by
Guy Debord as by Gustave Flaubert. City Lights has published more
of his work, including The Gunman.
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