No Room at the Morgue

'Manchette was Le Homme...rediscover him this very instant' - James Ellroy Meet Eugène Tarpon: ex-cop, ex-idealist, man in free fall. Kicked off the force for killing a protestor, Tarpon is drinking too much and waiting around for something to happen. Then it does. In bursts the wild-eyed and bloodstained Memphis Charles, whose roommate has been brutally murdered. And she wants no one but Tarpon on the case. As the bodies mount, Tarpon is dragged into a Parisian underworld of politics, sleaze, and paranoia - with nothing to guide him but instinct, stubbornness, and a battered sense of justice. With No Room at the Morgue, Manchette rewrote the American hardboiled detective novel into a bleak, boozy, and brilliantly French bruising meditation on guilt, truth, and the art of going down swinging. PRAISE FOR JEAN-PATRICK MANCHETTE 'A comedic genius... I read and reread him, stunned, appalled, and laughing out loud' - Rachel Kushner 'Manchette is one of the greatest writers since Dashiell Hammett, his only true son and heir' - David Peace 'Manchette is Camus on overdrive... He deserves much the same attention' - James Sallis

Jean-Patrick Manchette (1942-1995) was a crime novelist, screenwriter, critic, and translator. In 1971 he published his first novel and went on to establish a new genre of French novel, the neo-polar. Vintage Classics publishes his Fatale, Nada, No Room at the Morgue and Skeletons in the Closet.