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
Hildegarde Withers
Gender: Female
A tall, angular and determined elderly school mistress – in later books retired school mistress – in New York who solves cases in a suite of cosy detective stories by Stuart Palmer. She often cooperates with Inspector Oscar Piper and lawyer John J. Malone, created by Craig Rice. Hildegarde Withers always wears original hats and has an umbrella with her, collects tropical fish and is a strong opp...