'The French noir novel you need to help you vent your frustrations right now’ LitHub

Murder isn’t always ugly.

Aimée is drop-dead gorgeous, razor-sharp, and lethally efficient. A killer with a cool head and a taste for chaos, she arrives in the backwater town of Bléville – a festering stew of grudges, corruption, and small-town rot – ready to make a killing.

It's a game she’s played before: stir up trouble, pit the locals against one another, then disappear with blood on her hands and money in her pocket. But this time, something breaks and the game turns on her.

Jean-Patrick Manchette transformed the crime novel into a weapon of satire and stylish mayhem. Fatale is his bloodiest, funniest, and most brilliantly unhinged work: a riot of revenge, farce, and gleeful destruction.

PRAISE FOR JEAN-PARICK MANCHETTE


‘Manchette was Le Homme... We must revere him now and rediscover him this very instant. ’ James Ellroy

'A comedic genius... I read and reread him, stunned, appalled, and laughing out loud' Rachel Kushner

'Manchette is one of the greatest writers since Dashiell Hammett, his only true son and heir' David Peace

‘Manchette is Camus on overdrive... He deserves much the same attention’ James Sallis

‘Manchette is legend among all of the crime writers I know, and with good reason: his novels never fail to stun and thrill from page one’ Duane Swierczynski

France's king of noir fiction…he writes with a bleak, tragic beauty * The Times *
Shocking, funny, sad, smart and cool… A macabre delight from start to finish * Big Issue *
A fist between the eyes, leaving the reader reeling… So devastating it takes your breath away * Complete Review *
Manchette's books are all action, unfolding with a laconic efficiency that would make his killers proud * The Economist *
I’d rather read Manchette than many contemporary noir writers. -- Sarah Weinman * New York Times *

Jean-Patrick Manchette (1942–1995) was a crime novelist, screenwriter, critic, and translator. In 1971 he published his first novel and went on to establish a new genre of French novel, the neo-polar. Vintage Classics publishes his Fatale, Nada, No Room at the Morgue and Skeletons in the Closet.