Fatale

Description

Aimee Joubert is a drop-dead gorgeous femme fatale with a penchant for bloody murder. Ever on the lookout for opportunities for self-enrichment, she finds plenty to like as a newcomer to the detestable backwater town of Bleville: small-minded parochialism, self-interested parish politics, rampant corruption, dormant grudges, scandals just waiting to be uncovered - yes, there's a killing to be made here. So Aimee starts to wreak her stylish mayhem on Bleville's despicable bourgeoisie. But just when she's ready to take them all to the cleaners, something snaps, and the master manipulator falls prey to her wayward passions. A legend of the genre, Jean-Patrick Manchette transformed the modern crime thriller into something slick, chic and riotously enjoyable. A tornado of redemptive murder and a gleeful satire of small-town life, Fatale is Manchette's bloodiest, funniest and most brilliantly cathartic thriller yet.

Jean-Patrick Manchette (1942-95) was a genre-redefining French crime novelist, screenwriter, critic and translator. Throughout the 60s he supported himself by writing television scripts, young-adult books and film novelisations. In 1971 he published his first novel and embarked on his literary career in earnest, producing ten subsequent works over the course of the next two decades and transforming the crime thriller into a lethal weapon of political satire. Serpent's Tail have also published Manchette's novels The Prone Gunman (adapted for cinema as The Gunman, set to star Sean Penn) and Three to Kill; like Fatale, they are ultra-stylish, pacy, action-packed thrillers with a deadly satirical edge.

France's king of noir fiction ... he writes with a bleak, tragic beauty * The Times * Manchette throws a wrench into the workings of the main characters' lives and gleefully records the anarchy that results * Boston Review * A fist between the eyes, leaving the reader reeling ... so devastating it takes your breath away * Complete Review * Extraordinary ... Aimee is a glorious creation ... the tension and drama ramp up to a bloody and chaotic climax delivered in the same stark, bleak prose as the rest of the story ... That a story so shocking, funny, sad, smart and cool is delivered in only 91 pages is nothing short of a miracle. Uncompromising and utterly convincing, it's a macabre delight from start to finish. -- Doug Johnstone * Big Issue * [An] impressive and enjoyable dark farce * Morning Star *