the 11 laureates

the 11 laureates
of the readers’ price
Quais du Polar /
20 Minutes
quais
du polar
INTERNATIONAL
FESTIVAL
LYON
2
table of contents
THE 11 laureates
DOA
Franck Thilliez
François Boulay
Marcus Malte
Caryl Férey
Antoine Chainas
Serge Quadruppani
Antonin Varenne
Olivier Truc
Ian Manook
Jérôme Leroy
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3
5
7
9
11
13
15
17
19
21
23
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DOA
Behind the DOA (Dead on Arrival) pen name, hides a new generation
star author. After having published two thriller novels with Fleuve
noir (Les Fous d’avril and La Ligne de sang in 2004), the first of
which reveals to be a hybrid story with a severe dose of anticipation,
the plot taking place in 2019, DOA uses his writing skills to serve a
political critic of our country. With Citoyens clandestins, published
in 2007, he integrates the Gallimard Série noire, and mainly dips
in the terrorist field. Le Serpent aux mille coupures, rushes us in
the drug and mafia world. As a TV scriptwriter, DOA worked on
Arcanes and Braquo. Compulsive reader on the late, he loves cinema,
comic books, David Bowie, electronic music, Laphroaig and the Gran
Panatelas.
Novels :
2004 – Les Fous d’avril,
Fleuve noir - Prix des lecteurs
Quais du polar/ 20 Minutes (2005)
2004 – La Ligne de sang,
Fleuve noir/Folio policier
2007 – Citoyens clandestins,
Gallimard - Série Noire/Folio Policier
Grand prix de littérature policière,
(2007)
2009 – Le Serpent aux mille
coupures, Gallimard - Série Noire /
Folio Policier
2011 – L’Honorable Société, cowritten with Dominique Manotti
Gallimard - Série Noire/Folio Policier
Grand prix de littérature policière
(2011)
2015 – Pukhtu, Gallimard - Série
Noire
Other works :
2010 – Bonne année, K.,
Télérama
2010 – бесценный, Paris noir,
Asphalte/ Folio policier, previously
published in English under the title
Precious, in Paris Noir, Akashic
Books, December 4th, 2008.
2014 – Brèves de noir « La Meute »,
Points
Summary Les Fous d’avril, Fleuve noir, 2004
Markus Freys is a policeman of Russian origin, with a dark past, recruited by
Europol for his outstanding para-psychological skills. His younger brother, Joshua,
lives exclusively wired on the Net: a little Network genius, compensating his physical disability with his brilliant aptitude to twist and manipulate the cyber world.
When a madman holds hostages in a department store, we discover that on the Network flows a character attacking smugglers, tempting to infiltrate their minds while
creating murderess madness in them. The case initiated by Freys reveals that he
already claims victims around the world, and that the attack rhythm increases at an
alarming rate. With the help of his colleague, Nelly, and Lise the psychologist, Freys
tries to find the Evil root cause, cross-checking evidences up to an American military
hospital; but he rapidly finds himself blocked by the Secret Services authorities of
the concerned countries… And all those who are interested in the case, from near
and far, start to die…During a virtual diving session, his brother is attacked by
the cyber-criminal : Freys discovers that the latter is aware of secrets regarding
himself and his brother, secrets that have never been disclosed, not even to the
Europol authorities. Associating with a group of young smugglers, Joshua traces the
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trail of the entity up to an American research lab, which activities have curiously ceased…
A straight-through read. Suspense is not breathtaking— the outcome is predictable —, but the plot is
tight, without unnecessary lengths, and the characters are endearing. Nonetheless, Les Fous d’avril,
remains DOA’s first novel and the least fulfilled, to appreciate his work, you would rather focus on
novels such as Citoyens Clandestins or Honorable société.
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Franck thilliez
Born in 1973, Franck Thilliez, engineer in new technologies, combines his scientific education and his taste for the genre for all his
work.
Franck Thilliez is rewarded for his second novel, La Chambre des
morts, with the Quais du Polar/20 minutes Readers’ Prize in 2006,
and with the SNCF Thriller Prize in 2007. It will later become Alfred
Lot’s eponymous film.
Franck Thilliez decides to reunite his two fetish inspectors, Franck
Sharko and Lucie Hennebelle in a trilogy dedicated to violence. His
first opus, Le Syndrome E, is published with Fleuve Noir in 2010. It is
immediate consecration. As soon as it is released, it ranks among
the best sellers; the novel is sold in over fifteen countries including the United-States, for an amount of copies never reached before
by an author of French thrillers. To this, adds up the fact that a
producer from Hollywood, Indian Paintbrush, took an option for a
feature-film adaptation signed by Mark Heytman (Black Swan’s scriptwriter) and co-produced with the
Paramount studios. All of his titles, acclaimed by critics, ranked among the best sellers right after their
release.
Novels
2002 – Conscience animale,
CY éditions
2004 – Train d’enfer pour Ange
rouge, La Vie du Rail, «Rail Noir» /
Pocket
2005 – La Chambre des morts,
Le Passage/Pocket
Prix des lecteurs Quais du polar
(2006), Prix SNCF du polar français
(2007)
2006 – Deuils de miel, La Vie du
Rail, «Rail Noir»/Pocket
2006 – La Forêt des ombres,
Le Passage/Pocket
2007 – La Mémoire fantôme,
Le Passage/Pocket
2008 – L’Anneau de Moebius,
Le Passage/Pocket
2009 – Fractures, Le Passage/
Pocket
2010 – Le Syndrome E, Fleuve noir/
Pocket
2011 – Gataca, Fleuve noir/Pocket
2011 – Vertige, Fleuve noir/Pocket
2012 – Atomka, Fleuve noir
2013 – Puzzle, Fleuve noir/Pocket
2014 – Angor, Fleuve noir
Other works
2009 – L’Empreinte sanglante :
Ouroboros, Fleuve noir
2012 – Les petits polars du Monde
Le grand voyage, Le Monde format
EPub
2013 – L’Encre et le sang, 12-21
format EPub & Pocket
2013 – Les petits polars du Monde,
Hostiles
2013 – Tour de France, Un dernier
tour (12-21 format EPub)
2014 – Brèves de noir –
« Le Clandestin » Points
Scriptwriter
2013 – Alex Hugo, la mort et
la belle vie, de Pierre Isoard
(téléfilm), co-written with Nicolas
Tackian
2014 – Ligne de mire, de Nicolas
Herdt (téléfilm), co-written with
Mikael Ollivier
Adaptation
2007 – La Chambre des morts,
French film directed by Alfred Lot
based on the eponymous novel,
starring Mélanie Laurent and Gilles
Lellouche..
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Summary La Chambre
des morts,
Le Passage, 2005
Once upon a night, two days before Christmas, in the Dunkerque suburbs, two
friends, computers engineers on the dole because of a social plan, take revenge by
painting graffiti on the premises of the company that fired them.
As they drive away from the site, they accidently hit a man, who dies on the spot.
The passenger, Sylvain, wants at first to notify the police, but the driver, Vigo, fears
a prison sentence. Since the accident occurred on an isolated parking lot, on a wind
farm, where they suppose that no witness stand, he finally convinces his friend to
remain silent, to help him get rid of the corpse, and to flee, in the name of solidarity.
Especially because the man carried along an unusual and great amount of money,
they imagine their victim as a criminal, this way feeling no remorse, and pushing
them to keep the money to end their poverty.
The next day, the corpse of a ten year old girl is found in a warehouse facing the location of the accident. It turns out that the man hit by the car was in fact her father,
that the girl had been kidnapped, and the reason he was standing around here, was
to bring the ransom to free her; the kidnapper, having seen the events and understanding he could not get hold of the money, killed the young girl.
But the way the body was staged, the blindness of the girl (who would never have
recognized him anyway), and soon afterwards the kidnapping of another little girl
from a more modest social class (for which it would be much harder to get a ransom), mislead the investigators.
The second girl is diabetic, and cannot survive over forty hours with the medicine
she had on her when she was kidnapped. Investigators must hurry. Among them,
stands Sergeant Lucie Hennebelle, whose profiling abilities astonish her superiors.
A series of flashbacks and the final scene suggest that, during her childhood, Lucie
was at the side of the killer when he suffered a trauma that activated his psychological instability.
Through his precise and varied documentation, he offers us the discovery of taxidermy, ancient times anatomists, before ending, during the final downward spiral
to hell, with thoughts upon human depths, its ghoulish deviances of sick brains,
nonetheless so close to us. A very good thriller...
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François boulay
Born in 1937, François Boulay shares his time between the Rhône
and the Var. An existence which began under bombs, but which
seems to continues without too much apparent damages. After
a medical career, he now entirely devotes himself to writing and
drawing. His first steps across writing are fairly made as he works
in his doctor’s office. Two first novels: Un automne ordinaire (1993,
Michel Chomaret), which recounts the discovery of a child’s body
in a river, and which is the opportunity to step back to three places
and three periods, and Paradise (1998, La Fosse aux ours), which
has a picaresque storyline staging some highly biblical characters.
He then moves towards police literature : Traces (2006, Le Serpent à
plumes), Les Morceaux (2007, Télémaque) ; and historical literature :
Racine, racines (2010, Télémaque).
Novels
1994 – Un Automne Ordinaire,
Michel Chomarat
1997 – Paradise, La Fosse aux Ours
2006 – Traces, Télémaque / Folio
policier
Prix Quais du Polar/20 Minutes(2007)
2007 – Les Morceaux, Télémaque
2010 – Racine, Racines, Télémaque
2011 – Suite rouge, Télémaque /
Folio policier
2013 – Cette Nuit..., Télémaque
Other works
2014 – Brèves de noir
« Un canard au sang », Points
Summary Taces, Télémaque / Folio Policier, 2006
Elvire lives far away from everything in the Tuscany countryside. She, who believed
to know her husband, discovers that the man she love his presumably a predator
of the worst kind. Across the reading we discover various revelations on the nature
and the insane project of Lorenz, increasing page after page. Cleverly hidden behind
his smile and the crash of years of lead stunning and blinding the peninsula, the
predator scarcely appears but is omniscient in his dreams, his days, and the anxiety
of his relatives. We reach the climax of suffocation in the night scene where Elvire
fumbles through her house searching for her kids before tipping over « in another
world ».
When Cynthia the journalist becomes the narrator and brings to Elvire some elements of response on her husband’s behavior, on the role of his frequent absences,
on the play-acting of his psychiatric hospitalizations, the book can also take another
dimension, closer to the police novel. Because Cynthia, who came across the monster, can manage to go further back into his history, in other places, under different
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lights. She will still be here, again, when the time pendulum will lead us back to the present, near the
permanence of Evil.
For Traces operates with a slow temporal relapse up to the origins of the Evil it describes. François
Boulay interweaves times, takes steps back, changes narrators as to let us discover almost at the same
time as the characters, the terror getting hold of them, beginning with the unfortunate Elvire. Until the
final page of Traces, we fall in all the traps set by François Boulay with even more ease than his writing
is surprisingly effective.
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Marcus malte
Marcus Malte was born in 1967, not far away from the sea. His first
novel was published in 1996. From then, he never stopped writing
stories, mostly dark stories, intended for adults as well as for kids.
His works were rewarded with numerous literary prizes: Garden
of Love in 2009. Some of his novels : Le Vrai con maltais (BaleineLe Poulpe, 1999), La Part des chiens (Zulma, Folier policier, 2003),
Garden of love (Zulma & Folio policier, 2007), L’Echelle de Glasgow
(Syros, 2007), Les Harmoniques (Série noire, 2011).
In 2012, are released Cannisses under Atelier in8 Editions, and
Mortes Saisons, with the collaboration of the photographer Cyrille
Derouineau, under Le Bec en l’air Editions.
Novels
1996 – Le Doigt d’Horace,
Fleuve noir/Folio Policier
1997 – Le Lac des singes,
Fleuve noir/Folio policier
1998 – Carnage, constellation,
Fleuve noir/Folio Policier
2001 – Et tous les autres crèveront,
Zulma
2003 – Mon frère est parti ce
matin, Zulma
Prix de la Gàrdia in Giallo, Italie
(2004)
2003 – La Part des chiens, Zulma/
Folio policier
Prix Polar dans la ville, 2004
2005 – Plage des Sablettes,
souvenirs d’épaves, Autrement
2007 – Garden of Love, Zulma/Folio
policier
Grand Prix Paul-Féval de la SGDL
(2007), Prix Michel-Lebrun (2007),
Prix Cannes Polar (2007), Prix Sang
d’encre (2007), Prix Goutte de sang
d’encre (2007), Prix Millepages
(2007), Prix des lecteurs Quais du
polar/20 Minutes (2008), Prix Cœur
noir Le choix de la Critique (2008),
Grand prix des lectrices Elle (2008),
Prix les lecteurs Villeneuve-lezAvignon (2009), Prix Soleil noir (2010)
2008 – Le Vrai Con maltais,
Baleine
2008 – Poser ma besace à Besac,
Aréopage
2011 – Il est mort le poète,
La Tengo
2011 – Les Harmoniques,
Gallimard - Série Noire / Folio
Policier
Prix derrière les murs (2011), Prix
Mystère de la critique (2012)
2012 – Cannisses, In8
2012 – Mortes saisons, Le Bec en
l’air
2014 – Fannie et Freddie, Zulma
Other works
1997 – Douze et amères – « Les
Étourneaux », Fleuve noir
1998 – Sous la couverture quelques
faits d’hiver « Les Heures les plus
sombres de ma vie », DAL
1999 – Agenda du polar
« Novembre 2999 », Stylus
1999 – Ligne noire – « La Montée
des eaux », Libération
2000 – Les 7 Familles du polar
« Ça part du ventre », Baleine
2001 – Marseille, du noir dans le
jaune « Le Père à Francis »,
Autrement
2001 – Bleu, blanc, sang « Des
noms de fleurs », Fleuve noir
2005 – Intérieur Nord, Zulma
Prix du Rotary Club de Paris
(2005), Prix de la Nouvelle de
Nanterre (2005)
2006 – Petites agonies urbaines
« Nina au pays des merveilles »,
Le Bec en l’air
2007 – Bloody Birthday « La Petite
Fille aux amulettes », Elb
2007 – RDV au pied de la statue
« Inoxydable », Terre de Brume
2008 – Toute la nuit devant nous,
Zulma
Prix François Mauriac de
l’Académie française (2009)
2009 – Ostende au bout de l’Est
« Zeer daarlijk voeders », Le Bec
en l’air
2010 – Le Frère de Pérez
« Maestros y mozos », Au Diable
Vauvert
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2011 – Paris jour « Ouvrez la cage »
Parigramme
2011 – Les Hommes en noir Daniel, Les contrebandiers
2011 – Des cerises et des roses,
AFPA
2011 – Cinq mille pièces, Dazibao
2012 – Les Indiens, Les Petits
polars du Monde
2013 – Femmes en colère
« Tamara, suite et fin », In8
2013 – Les Mystères de la capitale
« Ceci sera de l’art », Le Bec en l’air
2014 – Je n’étais pas parti pour
rester, Couleurs Cactus
2014 – Brèves de noir, « Max Vegas
», Points
Novels and albums for youth
2000 – Cent jours avec Antoine et
Toine, Seuil
2001 – Sous ma couverture, Pocket
jeunesse
2005 – Bandit, Pocket junior
2006 – Il va venir, Syros
Prix du polar jeunesse de Montignylès-Cormeilles (2005), Prix Lionceau
noir (2005), Prix du Roseau d’Or
(2007)
2006 – Le Chapeau, Syros
2007 – De poussière et de sang,
Pocket jeunesse
Prix des collégiens du Doubs, 2009
Prix Stendhal (2009), Prix des
jeunes lecteurs de la Foire du livre
de Brive (2010)
2007 – Le Chat Machin, Syros
Prix de la marmite à lire (2009)
2008 – L’Échelle de Glasgow, Syros
Prix des lycéens autrichiens (2008)
2008 – Scarrels, Syros / Syros
poche
2010 – Ô corbeau, Syros
Prix Chrétien de Troyes (2010)
2011 – Mon vaisseau te mènera
jeudi sur un nuage, Syros
Summary Garden
of love,
2011 – Appelle-moi Charlie, Syros
2012 – La Chanson de Richard
Strauss, Sarbacane
Prix des enfants du livre (2013)
2012 – Sous ma couverture vit un
ours blanc, Sarbacane
2012 – Sous ma couverture vit une
tortue, Sarbacane
2013 – Sous ma couverture vit un
kangourou, Sarbacane
2014 – Sous ma couverture vit une
souris, Sarbacane
Cartoon Album
2002 – Le Vrai con Maltais,
adaptation by Jampur Fraize, Le
Poulpe « Six pieds sous terre »
2014 – Il est mort le poète,
drawing by Vincent Gravé, Les
Enfants rouges
Zulma, 2007
All is intermingled, truth and false. These characters are invented, but a large part
of their actions really happened. Murders happened. The described victims really
existed; they were part of the real world. Night, for long, invaded Alexandre Astrid’s
soul and existence, lost cop and wounded man, when he receives at home a curious
manuscript, entitled Garden of Love : the story of his own life, his ghosts and his
wounds, his loves and his mourning, revisited, wickedly recomposed, mixed with
dramas that send him back, with infinite perversion, to the ones he is in charge
of solving…Complex and subtle composition, permanent ambiguity of voices and
events, confusion of feelings, of sexes, of places and times.
Like in a pitiless mirror palace where past and present would confront, reason and
madness, Garden of Love is a thrilling novel, virtuosic, filled with intimate voices
muttering to the ear confidences and lies, temptations and remorse. And sets a fearful trap. With proud confidence.
Garden of love, which title is borrowed from William Blake, is a novel about the loss
of time, missed opportunities, paths for rebirth too. It is the novel of the “mauve
hour”, to which the hero is familiar with, that is the first hour of the day or the last
one of the night. Garden of Love could even slightly make us think of Jules and Jim.
It has its tenderness and poetry. But for Marcus Malte, as for William Blake, gardens
of love, which bare «many exquisite flowers», are also filled with graves.
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Caryl férey
Caryl Férey was born in Caen in 1967. It is in Rennes that he imagined the first characters of his novels, before setting sail. At first,
he travelled across Europe on a motorbike, then he started a worldtour during which, at twenty years old, he falls in love with New
Zealand. Greatly influenced by Godard, the Clash, Jacques Brel or
René Char, his preferences go to combustion, to the oppressed,
to women, to the beauty of the world... In 1994, his first novel is
released and four years later, the much remarked-upon Haka. This
revelation is confirmed in 2004 with Utu, then in 2008 with Zulu,
hailed by critics and booksellers, and adapted on big screen by
Jérôme Salle in 2013 to which 10 prizes were awarded, among them
the Big Thriller Literature Prize - Grand Prix de Littérature Policière
and the Big Thriller Prize of the ELLE Readers - Grand Prix des lectrices de ELLE policier, and the Quais du Polar/20 minutes Readers’
Prize - Prix des lecteurs Quais du polar – 20 minutes in 2009. He also
writes for children, musicians, theatre and radio. His latest novel,
Mapuche, was released in May 2012 and elected best thriller of the
year by the Lire magazine.
Novels
1994 – Avec un ange sur les yeux,
Balles d’Argent
1995 – Delicta Mortalia - péché
mortel, Balles d’Argent
1998 – Haka, Baleine/Folio Policier
1999 – Les Mystères de l’Oued,
Polar du Routard
2000 – Les Causes du Larzac,
Mango
2002 – Plutôt crever, Une enquête
de Mc Cash, Gallimard - Série Noire/
Folio Policier
2004 – Utu, Gallimard - Série Noire/
Folio Policier
Prix SNCF du polar français (2005),
Prix Sang d’Encre (2005), Prix Polar
Michel Lebrun (2005)
2006 – L’Âge de pierre, Après la
lune
2007 – La Jambe gauche de Joe
Strummer, Une enquête de Mc
Cash Gallimard - Série Noire /
Folio Policier
2008 – Zulu, Gallimard - Série Noire /
Folio Policier
Grand prix de littérature policière
(2008), Prix 813 (2008), Prix Lion
Noir du festival de Neuilly
Plaisance (2009), Prix du Roman
Noir Nouvel Observateur/Bibliobs
(2009), Prix Ancre Noir du festival
du Havre (2009), Grand prix des
lectrices de Elle (2009), Prix Jean
Amila-Meckert (2009), Prix des
Lecteurs Quais du polar/20
Minutes (2009), Grand Prix du
Roman Noir Français (2009), Prix
Mystère de la Critique (2009)
2009 – D’amour et dope fraîche,
Baleine
2012 – Mapuche, Gallimard - Série
Noire / Folio Policier
Prix Landerneau Polar (2012), Prix
Ténébris (2013)
2014 – Les Nuits de San Francisco
Flammarion
Other works
2006 – Petit Éloge de l’excès,
Gallimard
2007 – Raclée de verts, La Branche
2008 – Queue du bonheur, Musée
d’art contemporain du Val-deMarne
2010 – Fond de cale : la décalcomanie,
Après la lune
2013 – Comment devenir écrivain
quand on vient de la grande
plouquerie internationale, Points
2014 – Brèves de noir,
« L’échappée », Points
Novels for youth
2002 – Piro le Fou, Fleurus
2003 – Jour de colère, Thierry
Magnier
2006 – La Cage aux lionnes,
Syros
2007 – La Dernière Danse des
Maoris, Syros
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2007 – Ma langue de fer,
Thierry Magnier
2009 – Alice au Maroc, Syros
2010 – L’Afrikaner de Gordon’s
Bay, Syros
2010 – Krotokus Ier, Roi des
animaux, Pocket jeunesse
Adaptation
2013 – Zulu, French film directed
by Jérôme Salle based on the
eponymous novel, with Orlando
Bloom and Forest Whitaker.
Summary Zulu, Gallimard - Série Noire, 2008
As a child, Ali Neuman fled from the KwaZulu bantoustan to escape from the Inkatha
militias, in war against the NCA, underground force at the time. Even his mother,
only survivor of the family, doesn’t know what they did to him…Ali Neuman didn’t
forget those dark days of the apartheid, nor the bantoustans of his youth where a
majority if his zulu family was slaughtered.
Today head of the criminal police of Cape Town, showcase of post-apartheid South
Africa, Neuman backed by his assistant Epkeen, a very inclined to the bottle Africaner, has to deal with two major threats: violence and AIDS, both in which the
country, first African democracy, beats all the records, where violence expresses, in
addition to misery, the revival of a past hidden by the national reconciliation. Things
get worse when the daughter of a former rugby champion is found murdered in the
Kirstenbosch botanical garden. A drug of unknown composition seems to be the
reason for this massacre. Neuman who, after his mother’s assault, also investigates
in the townships, sends his right-hand man, Brian Epkeen, and the young Fletcher on
the killer’s trail, without knowing where they are setting foot…If apartheid disappeared from the political scene, old enemies continue to act in the shadow of the
national reconciliation…
Terrifying in its reality, this thriller leads us on the steps of its tortured heroes down
the deepest horror. The horror of a country which never ends excavating skeletons,
buried in haste at the time of the national reconciliation. From downtown areas to
miserable townships, Caryl Férey dissects the new wounds of the rainbow nation:
dope, AIDS, gang violence, stranglehold of mafia groups. And he gives us to see an
anchorless society, lost between black magic and unbridled capitalism. Dark and
enraged, Zulu is a breathtaking novel, worthy of the most desperate tackles.
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Antoine Chainas
Antoine Chainas, born in 1971, is a translator and novelist. He lives
in the South of France. His novel Anaisthêsia received the Quais du
Polar/20 Minutes Readers’ Prize in 2010. And he received the Big
Thriller Literature Prize - Grand prix de la littérature policière for
his novel Pur, in 2014.
Novels
2007 – Aime-moi Casanova,
Gallimard-Série Noire/Folio Policier
2008 – Versus, Gallimard - Série
Noire / Folio Policier
2009 – Anaisthêsia, Gallimard Série Noire / Folio Policier
Prix des Lecteurs Quais du Polar /
20 Minutes, 2010
2009 – Six pieds sous les vivants,
La Tengo « Polar & Rock’n roll »
2010 – Une histoire d’amour
radioactive, Gallimard - Série Noire /
Folio Policier
2010 – 2030 : l’odyssée de la
poisse, Baleine
2013 – Pur, Gallimard - Série Noire /
Folio Policier
Grand prix de la littérature
policière (2014)
Other works
2014 – Brèves de noir,
« Une trajectoire », Points
Translations
2012 – La Belle vie, Matthew Stokoe
Gallimard-Série Noire/Folio Policier
2012 – Prise directe, Eoin Colfer,
Gallimard - Série Noire
2013 – L’Autre chair, Michael
Olsen, Gallimard - Série Noire
2014 – Empty Mile, Matthew
Stokoe, Gallimard - Série Noire
2014 – Nosfera2, Joe Hill,
Jean-Claude Lattès
2014 – Plein gaz, Joe Hill, Stephen
King, Jean-Claude Lattès
2014 – Donnybrook, Frank Bill,
Gallimard - Série Noire
Summary Anaisthêsia, Gallimard - Série Noire, 2009
First black cop to incorporate an investigation group after last year’s interracial riots, Désiré Saint-Pierre is also a part-time dealer, in his neighborhood, the southern
ghetto of the white city. But a silly accident disrupts this beautiful order. A car with
Désiré inside it. A wall. They both meet.
The policeman wakes up after a long coma, disfigured and suffering from a massive
indifference to physical and psychological pain syndrome. When he resumes his
function, the media-crazed case of the female Ring Killer, to which he was assigned
before his hospitalization, starts to run wild and the hydrochloric cocaine kilogram
he was supposed to look after, disappeared. Here he is, employed as a sexual slave
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in a very private club to attempt to unmask her. Diving at the heart of perversion and human misery,
Désiré just only hopes to feel alive.
As the sickness slowly gains grounds, Désiré will follow the path of Ogun Badagris, God of war and discord who ruled the island which he should never have left…
In a dark gloomy universe, Antoine Chainas explores our margins and deviances, with a strong writing,
a haunting rhythm, a singular way of playing on repetitions and accumulations without ever giving the
impression of a show-off style.
The fury, the flood of rage and hatred of the inspector Paul Nazzuti in Versus, is here counterbalanced
with a character absolutely indifferent to whatsoever, without any feeling, without any emotion. The
shift from burning hot to icy cold, is always carried to the extremes.
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Serge Quadruppani
Serge Quadruppani was born in 1952 in the Var. Author of thrillers and Italian translator (Camilleri, Evangelisti, De Cataldo, Carlotto, Fois…), he regularly collaborates in the Monde diplomatique
and in La Quinzaine littéraire and also manages the « Bibliothèque
italienne » (“Italian Library”) of the Métailié Editions. He recently
published an essay, La Politique de la peur (The politics of fear), in
the Seuil Editions. This author considered as politically active uses
the noir novel to approach great society issues and denounces willingly in his works the police repression, Stalinists and what he perceives as excesses of the fight against terrorism. His latest novel,
Madame Courage was released in Masque Editions in 2012.
Novels
1991 – Y, Métailié
1992 – Rue de la Cloche, Métailié
1993 – La Forcenée, Métailié
1993 – Tir à vue, Gallimard - Série
Noire/Folio Policier
1995 – Comment je me suis noyé,
Gallimard-Série Noire/Folio Policier
1995 – Saigne-sur-Mer, Baleine
1998 – Le Sourire contenu, Fleuve
noir
1998 – Je te dirai tout, Blanche
2000 – Colchiques dans les prés,
Babel Noire/Actes Sud
2000 – Les Alpes de la Lune,
Métailié
2001 – Le Plagiat sous le pseudonyme Andrea Gandolfo, Métailié
2001 – Corps défendant, Métailié
2003 – La Nuit de la dinde, Métailié
Prix du Roman du Var (2003), Prix
Interlycées professionnels de
Nantes (2004)
2003 – Yasmina, sept récits et
cinquante recettes de Sicile aux
saveurs d’Arabie, avec Maruzza
Loria, Noésis/Métailié
2005 – Vénénome, Métailié
2005 – Nausicaa Forever, Le Rocher
2006 – Au fond de l’œil du chat,
Métailié
2009 – À la table de Yasmina, avec
Maruzza Loria (fiction avec
recettes de cuisine), Métailié
2010 – Saturne, Le Masque / J.C.
Lattès / Folio policier
Prix des lecteurs Quais du Polar /
20 Minutes (2011)
2011 – La Disparition soudaine des
ouvrières, Le Masque / J.C. Lattès /
Folio policier
2012 – Madame Courage, Le
Masque / J.C. Lattès / Folio policier
Other works
1979 – Le Chouan de SaintDomingue, avec B. Gilles, Presses
de la Renaissance
1979 – Des permanents de parti
politique, Métailié
1980 – La Malandrine, avec B.
Gilles, Presses de la Renaissance
1981 – Les Infortunes de la vérité,
Orban
1983 – Catalogue du prêt-à-penser
français depuis 1968, Balland
1986 – Un coupable idéal, Roger
Knobelspiess, Maurice Nadeau
1989 – L’Antiterrorisme en France,
La Découverte
1996 – Collectif, Libertaires et
« ultra-gauche » contre le
négationnisme, Réflex
2003 – La Révolution ne sera pas
télévisée, La Mauvaise Graine
2003 – Noirs complots – « Matinée
tranquille au café de l’oncle
Peppino » (dir. Pierre Lagrange)
2011 – La Politique de la peur, Seuil
2014 – Brèves de noir, « Le point
de vue de la gazelle », Points
16
Novels for the youth
1996 – Tonton tué, Syros
2005 – Il y a quelqu’un dans la
maison, Syros
2007 – J’ai jeté mon portable,
Syros
Translations
2007 – New Thing, Collectif Wu
Ming 1, Métailié
2007 – Guerre aux Humains, Collectif Wu Ming 2, Métailié
2008 – Nous ne sommes rien
soyons tout !, Valerio Evangelisti,
Rivages
2009 – La Coulée de feu, Valerio
Evangelisti, Métailié
2009 – Manituana, Wu Ming,
Métailié
2010 – La huitième vibration, Carlo
Lucarelli, Métailié
Summary Saturne, Le Masque/J.C. Lattès, 2010
As all seems quiet at Saturne’s thermal baths, favorite resting place for Romans, a
man opens fire and kills three people and injures several others before escaping.
Police commander Simona Tavianello is in charge of the case and as the Al-Qaeda
terrorist track is obviously designated, she prefers to draw near Cédric Rottheimer,
private detective. While missioned on the spot on the account of a jealous husband,
he filmed the unfaithful wife who figured among the victims. The murders are evidently the work of a professional and the police commander doesn’t want to leave
any stones unturned, especially because, at the time of the events, the G-8 summit
is taking place in Genoa. Moreover, Saturne’s thermal baths are also suspected of
money laundering.
Soon the case will reveal numerous and complex implications in the Saturne’s tragedy: mafia, shell corporations and even the government… They all want to share
an unspeakable loot. Police commander Tavianello, accused of complicity with the
godfather of a local clan, quits her job but without however abandoning the idea of
seeking out the truth. Will she have the resources to achieve this?
Mafia, multinational, oddly secret agents, Saturne draws on all available tracks
and doesn’t deny the stars, because who arrives on this not-so-well-turning-around
planet ? Andrea Camilleri, master of Italian thriller, whose great translator is Serge
Quadruppani and to whom he grants, in a blink of an eye, a delicious tribute. This
case is impossible to let go, as its rhythm is severely exciting.
17
Antonin Varenne
Born in Paris in 1973, Antonin Varenne will stay there only a few
months before being kidnapped by his parents to live in every corner of the country, than aboard a sailboat. He will come back only
at the age of twenty, to continue his scholarship in Nanterre. After a
master’s degree in philosophy, he leaves the University, becomes a
building mountaineer, lives in Toulouse, works in Iceland, in Mexico
and, in 2005, sets anchor at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains
where he decides to put down on paper a first story. Back to France
with an American wife, a bilingual child and a Mexican dog, he
settles in the Creuse and dedicates all his time to writing. After
Fakirs (2009), he publishes Le Mur, le Kabyle et le Marin, with
Viviane Hamy Editions. His latest novel, Trois mille chevaux vapeur,
is released with Albin Michel Editions.
Novels
2006 – Le Fruit de vos entrailles,
Toute Latitude
2008 – Le Gâteau mexicain,
Toute Latitude
2009 – Fakirs, Viviane Hamy
Prix Michel-Lebrun (2009), Prix Sang
d’encre (2009), Prix du meilleur
polar des lecteurs de Points (2010)
2011 – Le Mur, le Kabyle et le
Marin, Viviane Hamy
Meilleur polar francophone
Montigny-les-Cormeilles (2011),
Prix des lecteurs Quais du Polar /
20 Minutes (2012), Prix Jean Amila /
Meckert (2012)
Summary Le Mur,
le
Kabyle
et le
2014 – Trois mille chevaux-vapeur,
Albin Michel
Other works
2014 – Brèves de noir, « Dernière
lumière », Points
Marin, Viviane Hamy, 2011
Two stories and two ages. In 2008, George Crozat wages his battle within the Juvisy
Sporting. Nicknamed « the Wall », the heavyweight boxer counts thirty-eight victories, including twenty-three by knockout, and eight defeats by decision. He who
has just knocked off on the ring a strong twenty years old newcomer, who severely
forced on dope, has another role. During daytime, Crozat is a city police officer. A
sergeant wearing a uniform, attached to the 14th district’s police station. To embellish the ordinary and in order to afford the services of black prostitutes which he
so fond of, the boxer sometimes accepts additional work. This implies to receive in
his mail box envelopes containing cash, a name and a picture. Then, to achieve a
fee-based correction of a stranger…
1957. When the young Pascal Verini, known as the Sailor, was forced to quit the
factory to join in the army. A disciplinary measure sent the private in Algeria where
French soldiers weren’t supposed to make war but maintain peace. Two years undertaking stupid chores. Verini will have the opportunity to test local brothels. To
discover a place called the Farm where interviews are led with the help of a bathtub
or electricity. To come across Rachid, Kabyle committed within the FLN…
18
Two men, two periods, two fates. Two people disrupted to the innermost of their souls. And a meeting
point between the two periods and the three characters.
The skillful novelist refined a dark text of an incredible strength in which he questions himself in trough
on the difficulty of being a free man. On the relationship between human beings and violence – the one
we don’t choose and that we impose to ourselves. Carried by the writing of a real stylist also capable of
distilling suspense, Le Mur, le Kabyle et le Marin perfectly points out these unforgettable life instants.
A beautiful achievement.
19
Olivier truc
Journalist since 1986, he lives in Stockholm since 1994 where he
is a press correspondent for Le Monde and Le Point, after having
worked for Libération. Specialist in Nordic-Baltic countries, he is
also a TV documentarian. He is the author of a biography on a French
goulag survivor, L’Imposteur (Calmann-Lévy). His first novel, Le
Dernier Lapon, was published in September 2012 with Métailié
Editions.
Novels
2006 – L’Imposteur, Calmann-Lévy
2012 – Le Dernier Lapon, Métailié/
Points policier
Prix des lecteurs du Pays de Redon
(2014), Prix Inter polar du festival
polar de Reims (2013), Prix des
lecteurs Quais du Polar/20 Minutes
(2013), Prix Mystère de la critique
(2013), Prix Thierry Jonquet (2013),
Prix Robinsonnais (2013), Prix du
premier roman Rotary Club et
Salon du livre de Cosne-sur-Loire
(2013), Prix Biblioblog (2013),
Prix du Polar des médiathèques
d’Antony (2013), Prix Mes-SouThu (prix des bibliothèques de
Messimy, Soucieux-en-Jarrest et
Thurins) (2013), Prix polar Michel
Lebrun (2013), Prix Sang d’Encre
de la Ville de Vienne (2013), Prix
Goutte de Sang d’Encre, prix des
lecteurs décerné par le réseau des
médiathèques de la Ville de Vienne
(2013), Prix 1001 Feuilles Noires de
la Bibliothèque de Lamballe (2013),
Prix des lecteurs Plume Libre
(2013 ), Trophée 813 du festival
Paris Polar (2013)
2014 – Le Détroit du loup, Métailié
Other works
2014 – Brèves de noir,
« L’exfiltration de Snowdenski »,
Points
Summary Le Dernier Lapon, Métailié, 2012
Winter is cold and harsh in Lapland. In Kautokeino, a big Sami village in the middle
of the tundra, in the cultural centre, time has come to exhibit a shaman’s drum just
handed in by a French scientist, close friend of Paul-Emile Victor. It is an event in
the village. At night, the drum is stolen. Laestadians fundamentalist Protestants are
suspected : in the past, they have destroyed numerous drums to fight against paganism. Then, people think it might as well be the Sami independentists who played the
shot for their own notoriety. The death of a reindeer herder doesn’t help the case.
Two reindeer-police investigators, Klemet Nango the Lappish and his teammate Nina
Nansen, freshly graduated from police school, are sure that both cases are linked
with one another.
20
But in Kautokeino we don’t like to stir up old stories and they are sent back to their snow scooter races
through the icy vastness of Lapland, and to the pacification of endless squabbling between reindeer
herders whose flocks mingle. During the murder investigation Nina is fascinated by the wild beauty of
Aslak, who lives like his ancestors and perfectly knows this wild and white world. Why, in 1939, did Sami
guides offer this drum to the French expedition? What sort of message could it possibly carry? What do
traditional joïks intoned by Klemet’s old uncle really relate? What is this Frenchman doing in town, he
who is too fond of very young girls and who seems to know pretty well the region’s geology? To whom
are addressed Berit-the-devout’s prayers? What does the wild beauty of Aslak hide, he who lives at the
margin of the modern world with his half-crazy wife?
Olivier Truc shows contemporary upheavals, political struggles between Sami autonomists and extreme
right wing parties, greed stirred by par mineral wealth of the Lappish territory. Without ever letting the
fiction be squashed by erudition. In a Fargo-like atmosphere, in the middle of an incredible landscape,
endearing and strong characters immerse us to the limits of hypermodernity and of the tradition of a
community struggling for its cultural survivorship. A magnificent and absorbing thriller, written by an
author whose style is direct and vigorous, and who perfectly knows the region he speaks of.
21
Ian manook
Ian Manook was certainly the only beatnick to cross in three days
the United States from East to West to attend the Woodstock festival
and when arriving in California realized the festival opened the same
day on the East Coast, only a few miles away from his starting point.
That is to say how distracted he can be. And what a traveller’s spirit
too ! Journalist, publisher, publicist, and now novelist, Yeruldelgger
is his first thriller, and the first opus of a series around the eponymous character that drives us through the forgotten steppes of
Mongolia to the disturbing underworlds of Oulan-Bator. He lives in
Paris.
Novels
1978 – Pantanal, Beauval
1978 – D’Islande en Belize, Beauval
2003 – L’Affaire se corse, dessins
de Juan Maria Cordoba, Semic
2003 – Fallait pas faire les cons,
dessins de Juan Maria Cordoba,
Semic
2011 – Scoot toujours, dessins de
Du Vigan, Hugo & Cie
2012 – Le Temps du Voyage,
Transboreal
2012 – Les Bertignac I : l’homme à
l’œil de diamant, Hugo&Cie
Prix Gulli (2012)
2013 – Yeruldelgger, Albin Michel
Prix des lecteurs Quais du Polar/20
Minutes (2014), Prix SNCF du polar
(2014), Grand prix des lectrices de
ELLE (2014 )
Summary Yeruldelgger, Albin Michel, 2013
Five years earlier, Kushi, inspector Yeruldelgger’s daughter was kidnapped and murdered to force him to abandon a case concerning corruption linked with the repurchase of the Mongolian steppe’s lands. The discovery of another little girl’s corpse
will plunge him right back in the same old torments. In a country with wild history
and wild landscapes, a dirty war for money and power has been declared around
one of the rarest and most wanted mineral wealth of the planet. To fight against
powers wanting to steal his country, Yeruldelgger fully ushered in modernity, is confronted through his job to the most cloudy and violent aspects of his country’s life
which, after the breakup of the USSR, is now exposed to other influences, Chinese
and Korean especially. He will draw strength from inherited traditions of the Gengis
Khan’s warriors, in the modern investigation techniques, and in the force of his fists.
It is obvious that a man who has lost everything cannot lose anything more. He can
only reconquer it all. Step by step, without any kind of pity or forgiveness...
22
Not only graves are wild in Mongolia. For some men, the traffic of these “rare earth” minerals is worth
several lives. May they be innocent or not.
In this breathtaking thriller, on a frenetic pace, Ian Manook takes us along through the Central Asia’s
windswept deserts to the Oulan-Bator underworlds. His writing, precise and of great intensity, allows
him to feel at ease both in action scenes and in the description of steppes and Oulan-Bator’s bad neighborhoods, or in more intimate scenes that are Yeruldegger’s introspective moments. There was Mankell’s Sweden, Indridason’s Iceland, Rankin’s Scotland, there is now Ian Manook’s Mongolia !
23
jérôme leroy
Jérôme Leroy was born in Rouen in 1964. He taught French in
several secondary schools in the north of France before completely
devoting himself to literature. He wrote novels, short stories, poems
and even a science fiction anthology (The Last Man). Jérôme Leroy
also wrote detective drama for radio and two novels for children.
He created and directed the collection “Novella sf” at the Editions
du Rocher between 2004 and 2007. He is currently a writer for the
Figaro Littéraire, Ulysse and Liberté Hebdo. He is also a literary
adviser for the association Colères du Présent, which organizes a
“book fair for popular expression and social criticism” in Arras (Pas
de Calais).
Novels
1990 – L’Orange de Malte, Rocher
Prix du Quartier Latin
1994 – Le Cimetière des plaisirs,
Rocher
1997 – Monnaie bleue, Rocher
2000 – Big sister, Librio
2002 – Bref rapport sur une très
fugitive beauté, Les Belles Lettres Le grand cabinet noir
2004 – Le Cadavre du jeune
homme dans les fleurs rouges,
Rocher
2005 – Rendez-vous rue de la
Monnaie, Autrement
2008 – La Minute prescrite pour
l’assaut, Mille et une nuits
2009 – En harmonie, Équateurs
2009 – À vos Marx, prêts, partez !,
Éditions Baleine - Le Poulpe
2011 – Le Bloc, Gallimard - Série
Noire / Folio Policier
Prix Michel-Lebrun (2012)
2014 – L’Ange gardien, Gallimard Série Noire
Prix des lecteurs Quais du Polar /
20 minutes 2015
Other works
1994 – Frédéric H. Fajardie, Rocher
1996 – Requiem en Pays d’Auge,
Rocher
1996 – Départementales, Rocher
1999 – Une si douce apocalypse,
Les Belles Lettres
1999 – La Grâce efficace, Manitoba /
Les Belles Lettres
2006 – Le Déclenchement muet des
opérations cannibales, Équateurs
2006 – Rêves de cristal. Arques,
2064, Mille et une nuits
2007 – Comme un fauteuil Voltaire
dans une bibliothèque en ruines ,
Mille et une nuits
2010 – Le Dictionnaire des personnages populaires de la littérature
des XIXe et XXe siècles, Seuil,
Ouvrage collectif dirigé par
Stéfanie Delestré et Hagar Desanti.
2010 – Physiologie des lunettes
noires, Mille et une nuits
2010 – Un dernier verre en
Atlantide, La Table ronde
Prix de l’Académie française Maïse
Ploquin-Caunan (2011)
2013 – Dernières nouvelles de
l’enfer, L’Archipel
2015 – Les jours d’après, contes
noirs, La Table ronde
2015 – Sauf dans les chansons, La
Table ronde
Novels for youth
2006 – La Princesse et le Viking,
Syros
2007 – La Grande Môme, Syros
Prix du polar Jeunesse (2008)
2013 – Norlande; Syros
Prix des Collégiens du Doubs (2013),
Prix NRP de littérature jeunesse
(2013-2014), Prix littéraire des Maisons Familiales Rurales du Maineet-Loire (2014), Prix Jean-Claude
Izzo (2014), Prix spécial du jury des
collégiens Livre-Franche (2014)
24
Résumé L’Ange Gardien, Gallimard - Série Noire, 2014
L’Ange gardien (The Gardian angel) is the story of three characters throughout a
quarter of a century. The first one is Berthet. Berthet is one of the best agents in the
Unity, an unofficial police force which had become a true State within the State. But
Berthet is growing old and wonders when his bosses will decide to get rid of him. He
is under no illusions : he has known too much for too long. The second one is Martin
Joubert. Martin Joubert is a writer on his last legs. He is fifty years old, his couple
is struggling and he has money issues. To be honest, Martin Joubert is getting tired
and has only one wish: to disappear from a world he doesn’t understand anymore
and won’t even try to understand. He is the one Berthet wants to tell his story to.
Finally, there is Kardiatou Diop. Kardiatou Diop is young, beautiful, and black. She is
a minister. She is now a model of integration and she is considered as an up and
coming politician. Tomorrow, however, she could just as well be made a martyr.
Enchanted and madly in love, Berthet becomes her guardian angel and protects her
from her enemies to safeguard her way to the very top of the State.
L’Ange gardien, which the author would have named Trois (Three) in tribute to
Balzac, is a three voices story, a melancholic meditation on contemporary France
and a plunge into the heart of the “deep state”. The writing of this polyphonic novel
is particularly well done and totally fascinating. At the crosspoint between Manchette’s behaviourist style (to whom Leroy pays several tributes) and a “neo-hussard” literature, Leroy gives to each part of his story an impressive psychological
and sociologic depth. We can recognize in Joubert, a fifty year old left wing journalist
writing for the right wing press, a fictional double of the author. This novel can be
read as a political thriller about the way democracies die. But it is mainly a strange
love story.
25
A
project undertaken by
Quais
du
Polar
Quais du Polar has become THE key event of the genre. Firmly established in the French and European
cultural scenery, it is both recognised by the professionals and an ever increasing audience attending
the different events organised by the festival.
A choice of novels, graphic novels, films, suspense quests in the streets of Lyon, exhibitions, games...
throughout the four-day 2015 festival.
The festival is for all audiences: from bulimic crime fiction readers, amateur detectives, crime
column fans and thrill-seeking moviegoers to curious passers-by, citizens well-informed in world
affairs, party goers who love meeting people, and graphics and comic book enthusiasts... Whatever
your age, whatever your gang, day and night, Quais du Polar is the place to be!