Pierre Boileau (left) with Pierre Ayraud
Photo: Jean-Claude Deutsch/Paris Match / Getty Images (1977)
Sample of authors
Boileau, Pierre
Pierre Boileau was one half of the partnership (and the brand) Boileau-Narcejac, which can best be described as French crime writing institution. The other half was Pierre Ayraud (writing under the pseudonym Thomas Narcejac). Both authors wrote detective novels both independently and together, many of which were made into popular films. They were also prominent figures on the French literary...
Literary figures
Johnny Métal
Gender: Male
Hardboiled crime reporter, based in New York, where he is also busy infiltrating organised crime. He usually acts more as a private detective than as a journalist. Métal is the main character in half a dozen detective stories packed with cliches and written by Frank Harding, a pseudonym of the French author Léo Malet, who was strongly inspired by Dashiell Hammett when he wrote the novels.