Photo: Louis Monier/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images (1979)
Sample of authors
Manchette, Jean-Patrick
Jean-Patrick Manchette was a French author credited for having revolutionised noir fiction in France. He was born in Marseille. In 1945, the family moved to Malakoff in the Paris area. In 1960, after finishing his upper-secondary education, he moved to Paris where he spent most of his life and where he read English at the Sorbonne.
Manchette joined the militant left during the Algerian War of...
Literary figures
Nick Velvet
Gender: Male
He is a professional thief, but he only steals worthless objects to order. This means that author Edward D. Hoch gives him double tasks: partly to carry out the robberies, partly to work out why somebody wants to pay his very high fee to steal, say, water or dust. Nick Velvet is a well-dressed, handsome, worldly gentleman with a patient girlfriend, Gloria Merchant, at his side.