Paris Noir

Originally published in 1996 by Houghton Mifflin.

All original stories from Paris' finest authors, all translated from French. Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. Brand-new stories by: Didier Daeninckx, Jean-Bernard Pouy, Marc Villard, Chantal Pelletier, Patrick Pécherot, DOA, Hervé Prudon, Dominique Mainard, Salim Bachi, Jérôme Leroy, Laurent Martin, and Christophe Mercier.

In Paris Noir Yonnet tells is about some of the darker quarters of Paris on the left bank of the Seine, centred on the place Mauberge and the rue Mouffetard, as seen from his own experience. It is mainly written during the 1940s, under the Occupation and in the immediate post-war period; there is a certain amount dealing with the resistance, but the main thrust of the book is a Paris that existed between the wars - and is well known from the film noir -but has since disappeared. It concentrates on the people, rather than places, a mixture of ordinary workers, tradesmen, artists, con-men and criminals. It invests the area with a sense of mystery including occasional supernatural events; it is extremely well written, often using the language of the inhabitants of the area. Raymond Queneau considered it the greatest book ever written about Paris. For Dedalus it is the perfect counterfoil for J.K.Huysmans� Parisian Sketches which Dedalus published in 2004 which showed the darker side of Paris pre Haussman�s big boulevards. 'Among the books you must read before you die is Paris Noir by Jacques Yonnet.' Raphael Sorin �Concentrating on the seedy area around Rue Mouffetard, which becomes "La Mouffe" in a typically Parisian abbreviation, Yonnet reveals the dark side of the City of Light in the 1940s in this "secret history of a city".The street life of the Left Bank ticks on much as normal during the Occupation, though Léopoldie the tart stops turning tricks because "the green German uniform does not suit her complexion". Keep- on-Dancin', the killer with a fondness for history, rules the roost. Though describing himself as "sceptical, disillusioned, cynical", Yonnet casually dispatches a traitor in the Resistance. This is film noir in book form." Christopher Hirst in The Independent

Following the success of Paris Noir, the Akashic Noir Series has expanded to include the famously diverse and sometimes controversial suburbs of this legendary city. "Dark tales shine a bright light on some little-seen parts of greater Paris." --Kirkus Reviews "Paris's suburbs--a mix of slums, posh neighborhoods, fading industrial centers, and the city's notorious housing projects that lie out of the sight of most tourists--provide the setting for [these] 13 tales." --Publishers Weekly Featuring brand-new stories by: Cloé Mehdi, Karim Madani, Insa Sané, Christian Roux, Marc Villard, Jean-Pierre Rumeau, Timothée Demeillers, Rachid Santaki, Marc Fernandez, Guillaume Balsamo, Anne Secret, Anne-Sylvie Salzman, and Patrick Pécherot. (All stories were written in French and translated into English by Katie Shireen Assef, David Ball, Nicole Ball, and Paul Curtis Daw.) From the introduction by Hervé Delouche: The term Greater Paris is in vogue today, for it has an administrative cachet and seems to denote a simple extension of the capital--as if a ravenous Paris need only extend her web. However, it was not our goal to embrace the tenets of the metro area's comprehensive plan, aka the Grand Projet, envisioned as a future El Dorado by the planners and developers. Rather, our aim was to depict the Parisian suburbs in all their plurality and diversity. Without pretending to encompass every spot on the map, we instead opted to give voice and exposure to the localities chosen by the writers who have been part of this adventure. Thus, we decided to adopt the word "suburbs"-- in the plural, obviously, for the periphery of the capital is not a homogeneous bloc, nor is it reducible to a cliché like "the suburban ring" . . . Here are thirteen stories, decidedly noir, to be savored without sugar or sweetener.

Takes readers on a ride into the old medieval quarter of Paris with its winding streets, ghosts and secrets buried in history. Not only an homage to the crime fiction genre, Paris Noir is also an invitation to some of the best French fiction and offers readers an explosive and poetic cocktail of crime, gunfights and twisted love stories.

Following the success of Paris Noir, the Akashic Noir Series has expanded to include the famously diverse and sometimes controversial suburbs of this legendary city. "A treasure chest of resources for any noir author seeking a more gruesome approach or a more relentless destruction of the soul. One might hope the real Paris suburbs are not so dark and blood drenched. But by the end of the collection, that hope seems almost foolish, and the body found on the quay seems to be the lucky guy in the story." —New York Journal of Books "The short stories center on the suburbs of Paris, fertile soil for all sorts of resentment and violence. . . .For lovers of crime noir short fiction, these are 12 stories of life lived in the raw." —Library Journal "Dark tales shine a bright light on some little-seen parts of greater Paris." —Kirkus Reviews "Paris’s suburbs—a mix of slums, posh neighborhoods, fading industrial centers, and the city’s notorious housing projects that lie out of the sight of most tourists—provide the setting for [these] 13 tales." —Publishers Weekly Featuring brand-new stories by: Cloé Mehdi, Karim Madani, Insa Sané, Christian Roux, Marc Villard, Jean-Pierre Rumeau, Timothée Demeillers, Rachid Santaki, Marc Fernandez, Guillaume Balsamo, Anne Secret, Anne-Sylvie Salzman, and Patrick Pécherot. (All stories were written in French and translated into English by Katie Shireen Assef, David Ball, Nicole Ball, and Paul Curtis Daw.) From the introduction by Hervé Delouche: The term Greater Paris is in vogue today, for it has an administrative cachet and seems to denote a simple extension of the capital—as if a ravenous Paris need only extend her web. However, it was not our goal to embrace the tenets of the metro area’s comprehensive plan, aka the Grand Projet, envisioned as a future El Dorado by the planners and developers. Rather, our aim was to depict the Parisian suburbs in all their plurality and diversity. Without pretending to encompass every spot on the map, we instead opted to give voice and exposure to the localities chosen by the writers who have been part of this adventure. Thus, we decided to adopt the word “suburbs”— in the plural, obviously, for the periphery of the capital is not a homogeneous bloc, nor is it reducible to a cliché like “the suburban ring” . . . Here are thirteen stories, decidedly noir, to be savored without sugar or sweetener.

Paris Noir is a collection of new stories about the dark side of Paris, with contributions by leading French, British and American authors who have all either lived or spent a significant amount of time in Paris. Edited by Maxim Jakubowski, the stories range from quietly menacing to spectacularly violent, and include contributions from some of the most famous crime writers from both sides of the Atlantic, as well as the other side of the Channel.

The first of two volumes presenting all of the world-renowned hardboiled crime graphic novels (one of which has never before been collected in English!). In the never-before-collected Griffu, the titular character is a legal advisor, not a private eye, but even he knows that when a sultry blonde appears in his office after hours, he shouldn't trust her ― and she doesn't disappoint. Griffu is soon ensnared in a deadly web of sexual betrayal, real estate fraud, and murder. In West Coast Blues, a young sales executive goes to the aid of an accident victim, and finds himself sucked into a spiral of violence involving an exiled war criminal and two hired assassins. This volume also offers a bonus, 21-page unfinished story by Manchette and Tardi, as well as a single page introduction to another incomplete story, both appearing in English for the first time.