Photo: Louis MONIER/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images (1990)
Sample of authors
Japrisot, Sébastien
Pseudonym for the French author, translator and filmmaker Jean-Baptiste Rossi who was born in Marseille to Italian parents. After his father left the family, Japrisot was educated at a Jesuit school and then read philosophy at Sorbonne. He was an intelligent, but rebellious student prone to skipping lectures. At the age of sixteen, he began his debut novel, The False Start (1950, Les mal...
Literary figures
Merlini
Gender: Male
His first name is never mentioned, but as a stage magician he is known as The Great Merlini. He is a former circus artiste, but when we meet him in Clayton Rawson’s detective story, Merlini is running a store for magic supplies in Times Square in New York and solving inexplicable murders – so-called impossible crimes. He doesn’t like the subway, beer, opera, golf and sleep, but loves surfing, tabl...