Books by Jean-Patrick Manchette

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.