Tag Archives: Manchette

Hammett: The Noir Croissant

Posted on May 31, 2022 by Don

Brian Wallace updates the news regarding Clive Owen playing Sam Spade, after Sam has moved to France, it’s circa 1963, and a plot is brewing. First, The Ronin blurbs the project and speculates who might pick it up — they … Continue reading →

Posted in Dash, Film, News | Tagged , , , |

Rediscovered: Purist Outrage!

Posted on July 25, 2021 by Don

The idea that Brian Leno and Tom Krabacher and I cast wary eyes toward the new James Patterson “Shadow” novel recently drove the noted book and pulp collector Kevin Cook into a berserker frenzy. “Why the [sulphurous blasphemy] do you … Continue reading →

Posted in Lit, REH | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Sinister Cinema: Sam Invades Manchette Territory

Posted on March 23, 2021 by Don

Terry Zobeck pops along the news from The Rap Sheet that unbeknownst to us Sam Spade moved to France and is about to get into some 1960s colonial action, as in a Jean-Patrick Manchette novel! Well, hell, I wasn’t expecting … Continue reading →

Posted in Dash, Film, Willeford | Tagged , , , , |

Death Lit: Manchette Under Review

Posted on June 4, 2020 by Don

My review of the latest translation from French noir master Jean-Patrick Manchette — No Room at the Morgue — recently popped at PW. Here’s the really good news — New York Review Books lined up another translator to work on … Continue reading →

Posted in Lit | Tagged , , , , , |

Death Lit: Reliquaries of the Weird

Posted on November 22, 2019 by Don

The other day Brian Leno mentioned that he’d heard good things about the novel Relic by Preston & Child — but even more specifically, he got the major tip-off from me. Brian notes, “You told me about this book over … Continue reading →

Posted in Lit | Tagged , , , , , , , |

Sinister Cinema: Heresy

Posted on June 19, 2018 by Don

In February, when I was generally distracted, the publisher Vince Emery passed along a link to a Hollywood Reporter article on the possible or upcoming movie of the Charles Willeford novel The Burnt Orange Heresy. Who knows if it’ll make it … Continue reading →

Posted in Film, News, Tour, Willeford | Tagged , , , , , |

Rediscovered: Brian Leno Reviews a Bestseller; or, Amazing Exploits of the Tallest Midget

Posted on October 25, 2014 by Don

When I began my casual gig reviewing books for Publishers Weekly back in 2000, I told Pete the editor that I wasn’t interested in covering any novels that were being packaged as “bestsellers” — I did my time earlier in those … Continue reading →

Posted in Lit, News, REH | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Rediscovered: Another Manchette Down

Posted on July 26, 2014 by Don

While I wasn’t paying close attention, New York Review Books has slipped another novel by Jean-Patrick Manchette into English translation — excellent. Only took them three years, but that is much better than the previous gap of nine years between … Continue reading →

Posted in Lit, News | Tagged , , |

Rediscovered: The “Human Typewriter” on the Fattest Man in Milan

Posted on July 31, 2013 by Don

A few months ago I read Giorgio Scerbanenco’s A Private Venus — only the second book translated into English by this writer, so prolific he was called the “human typewriter”. . . . I’ve met several authors who could lay claim … Continue reading →

Posted in Lit | Tagged , , , , |

Rediscovered: Manchette

Posted on January 16, 2011 by Don

Finally. More Jean-Patrick Manchette makes the leap into English-language print. After nine years. Powers-That-Be, come on, speed it up. In March 2002 City Lights Noir created a shockwave among noir cognoscenti with Donald Nicholson-Smith’s riveting translation of Three to Kill, Manchette’s 1976 thriller … Continue reading →

Posted in Lit, Willeford | Tagged , , , , , |