Original title: TOTAL KHEOPS (1995), this noir/HB novel by
Izzo was a great success (justified) and highly acclaimed in
France when it was published by Serie Noire. This excellent
novel - his first- was written by a writer who came very late
to crime novel writing, and he produced only 3 novels (the
cycle with Fabio Montale) some shorts and a novella. It's
surely one of the best French noir novels of the last ten
years. Before these novels Izzo collaborated to some film
scripts, two of them with mystery/crime coloration.
In my opinion, the second volume of the trilogy (Chourmo
-1996) is not on par with the first one, even if it's still a
good HB/noir novel. The third and last one (Solea- 1998), is
better, darker and more desperate than the first one, but it
still lacks something compared to the excellence of TOTAL
KHEOPS. There was a possible explanation for the total
pessimism of the third novel, as Izzo was then already very
affected by illness- an illness that will lead to his death
in 2000 (he was 55). All this being said, the whole trilogy
is really worth your attention. One very particular point in
these novels is how Marseilles, the city itself, plays a role
equivalent to this of a character in the story; not only as
background and part of the setting (this being very common in
HB/noir) but really as an influence on the people involved
and the events depicted in the story.
As for the TV adaptation of the 3 novels, in three films,
with Delon in the leading role, it's a complete disgrace,
compared to the novels and their main character, with so many
concessions and wrong deviations, that it's just a bad
caricature of the original trilogy written by Izzo. Further,
the director filmed it as mainstream TV films with no real
skills or talent to made them at least acceptable films
noirs.
E.Borgers Hard-Boiled Mysteries http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6384
Polar Noir http://www.geocities.com/polarnoir
Vince Keenan :
>All the recent discussion of Manchette prompted me to
visit the foreign
>mysteries section of the bookstore, where I picked up
Europa Editions'
>handsome new version of this 1995 book. It's Izzo's
first U.S. translation,
>and it simply knocked me out.
>
>It's a great hard-boiled tale of a Marseilles police
detective looking into
>the deaths of two close friends from his wild days on
the streets. Drenched
>with atmosphere, shot through with pain and longing
... it's the best book
>I've read in quite some time.
>
>CHAOS is the first in a trilogy, and Europa plans on
bringing the other two
>installments out in 2007. But I'm not sure if I can
wait that long.
>
>I'm hoping that some of our continental rare birds
can shed some light on
>Izzo, who died in 2000. What's his reputation? How
are the follow-up books
>in the Marseilles trilogy? And has anyone seen the
film adaptation of CHAOS
>or the TV series based on the books starring Alain
Delon?
>
>Vince Keenan
>
>
>
>
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 14 Nov 2005 EST