Fatale

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.

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. 
 
She’s played this game 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. Aimée lets someone in – and the game turns personal. 
 
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 
 
‘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

Jean-Patrick Manchette

Long live the revolution. To hell with its children. 
 
In Paris, the Nada gang – a small cell of left-wing radicals – hatch a plan: kidnap the U.S. ambassador. They’re armed, angry, and almost successful – but totally unprepared for what follows. 
 
The state moves fast and without mercy. As the crackdown begins, the group splinters under pressure – exposing cowardice, betrayal, and the thin line between radical idealism and outright nihilism. There will be no heroes – only casualties. 
 
Jean-Patrick Manchette skewers both the establishment and its would-be destroyers in this pitch-black political thriller. Nada is his most overtly radical work: a savage, stylish dissection of violence, ideology, and the wreckage left behind.

Jean-Patrick Manchette

Books by Jean-Patrick Manchette

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