No Room at the Morgue
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4.0 • 8 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Inspired by the works of Dashiell Hammett, No Room at the Morgue is Jean-Patrick Manchette's unparalleled take on the private eye novel — fierce, politically inflected, and finely rendered by the haunting, pitch-black prose for which the author is famed.
No Room at the Morgue came out after Jean-Patrick Manchette had transformed French crime fiction with such brilliantly plotted, politically charged, unrelentingly violent tales as Nada and The Mad and the Bad. Here, inspired by his love of Dashiell Hammett, Manchette introduces Eugene Tarpon, private eye, a sometime cop who has set up shop after being kicked off the force for accidentally killing a political demonstrator. Months have passed, and Tarpon desultorily tries to keep in shape while drinking all the time. No one has shown up at the door of his office in the midst of the market district of Les Halles. Then the bell rings and a beautiful woman bursts in, her hands dripping blood. It’s Memphis Charles, her roommate’s throat has been cut, and Memphis can’t go to the police because they’ll only suspect her. Can Tarpon help?
Well, somehow he can’t help trying. Soon bodies mount, and the craziness only grows.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Business is slow for Paris PI Eug ne Tarpon, the narrator of this clever crime novel from Manchette (1942 1995) first published in 1973. "I sleep a lot. Or rather, I'm half awake a lot," he admits. Tarpon also drinks a lot. Then late one night, Memphis Charles, a small-time actor, rings the bell of his tiny, five-flight walkup apartment. She has found her roommate, Griselda Zapata, with a slit throat, but doesn't want to go to the police because she's afraid she'll be arrested for the murder. When Tarpon refuses to assist, Memphis knocks him out with his phone. The hard up Tarpon later accepts a large check from Griselda's brother to find the killer. The private eye eventually reconnects with Memphis, and lies to the police about her whereabouts, as he follows leads deep into the porn industry. Manchette plays this story for ironic humor, which might distress the many fans who know him for the symphonic sessions of assassination and gunplay in such masterpieces as The Prone Gunman and The Mad and the Bad. But even a lesser Manchette remains essential reading.
