"No Room At The Morgue" by Jean-Patrick Manchette, Afterword by Howard A. Rodman (NYRB)

 

ISBN: 978-1-68137-418-5

As I live on in the 21st-century, I'm finding less pleasure in everyday life, except for the novels by Jean-Patrick Manchette (1942-1995).  "No Room at the Morgue" is unusual (so far) compared to his other narratives because the main character is a private detective.  Like a classic crime-noir novel, there are colorful characters in an iconic city, that's Paris.  The placement of a crime novel is always using the location as if it's another character.  I often wish that their fiction section is organized in a bookstore in what city the story takes place.  If I want to read a Parisian story, I go to the Paris section of the store. 

Manchette is one of the great crime writers, and what gives him that edge is that his world is very much part of the May '68 world or rebellion and the failure of that movement.  Usually, in classic detective novels, there is the background of war or an economic downturn that fuels the narrative in some form or method.  Manchette is no different in using contemporary (at then) life, and making it very much part of the world of the characters, and how they operate in such a manner.  

Harold A. Rodman's afterword is a dessert after a delicious main meal, the novel itself.  Once again, the New York Review of Books has put together a masterful package.