No Room at the Morgue publishes today, the first ever English translation of Jean-Patrick Manchette's hip crime classic featuring ex cop, now private eye Eugène Tarpon.
Thank you New York Review Books for counting Jean-Patrick Manchette as among your prime authors and thank you Alyson Waters for rendering the author's words into crisp, fluid English.
No Room at the Morgue - non-stop action juiced with social commentary galore, a novel sizzling on the grill with these tasty ingredients:
Eugène Tarpon
Former member of the National Gendarmerie, kicked out for killing one of the twenty-year old kids attacking a police station with bottles of gasoline, Tarpon sits in his fifth floor rundown Paris apartment, bottle in hand, admits the world is crazy and he should give up being a private detective. But he hears his doorbell ringing. Like it or not, Tarpon, time to pull yourself together and swing into action.
Two Actresses
"Griselda's throat's been slit." So a fetching gal calling herself Memphis Charles proclaims to Tarpon as a first step in seeking his help. As Tarpon comes to understand, Griselda and Memphis are roommates and both are actresses, Griselda playing roles in films with titles like Forbidden Caresses and The Desires of the Tartars while Memphis is more of a stunt artist. Tarpon also learns eventually Griselda has a backstory with bite. Watch out for those gleaming sharp teeth, Eugène!
Drugs and Bombs
When Tarpon suggest Memphis goes to the police, she tells him, "Cut it out , dirty cop, asshole. That's not the whole story. There are drugs in the apartment and bombs in the basement." Whoa baby! This is 1972 so we can understand the beautiful babes are playing with LSD but bombs? Oh, yes, Memphis has friends of the far-left-wing persuasion.
Changing France
Again, this is the 1970s and Paris is undergoing a colossal overhaul - immigrants from all over the world bringing their own culture and tastes in music, food and fashion. Some native Parisians think their city has been turned over to, to name two, Jews and the Mafiosi.
Pop Culture
Tarpon pays a visit to the scene of the murder. He can see two giant posters on the wall: "a giant photo of a pregnant black woman wearing a button on her stomach (NIXON'S THE ONE said the button); at the other end of the bookshelves, another poster, a print of a pop singer whose name escaped me. Geiger? Jaeger? Something like that." Hey, Eugène, you're dating yourself old man. That's none other than the great Mick Jagger.
Key Literary Reference
"She (Memphis) asked me if I thought I was Sam Spade, and once again she had to explain to me that he was a character in a novel." Such a nice touch, Jean-Patrick! If there is any novel No Room at the Morgue can be likened to, it is Dashiell Hammett's Maltese Falcon - the primary reason: written in super-close third person. As Dashell has us following Same Spade around San Francisco, so Jean-Patrick has us continually looking over the shoulder of Eugène Tarpon. And, of course, there's a ton of roughhousing and corpses for the morgue.
Colorful Characters
What's a detective novel without those tiresome police that must be answered to? No Room features a couple of doozies along with the aforementioned extreme leftists, Arabs and Americans among their number, and, believe it or not, a bald, gruff, surly mafia chief who can't stop crying.
Brand-Name Gleam and Sheen
In the sheek world of Jean-Patrick Manchette, cars and guns hold high status, demanding to be called by their brand names: Lancia, Peugeot 203, Mercedes, Citroën DS, Toronado, Ruger, .32ACP, Mauser. Man, if you’re playing the game of international intrigue, you gotta drive with quality speed and shoot with deadly heat.
Concluding Tickler
In the book’s Afterward, Howard A. Rodman writes, “No Room at the Morgue is, then, a story that begins with Marx and ends in Freud, stopping along the way at Wilhelm Reich.” Now what does Howard mean by such a statement? For Jean-Patrick Manchette to tell.
Jean-Patrick Manchette, 1942-1995
"I took two steps toward the young guy and grabbed him by the collar. He tried to push me away by sticking his fist in my ribs and I punched him in the gut, hard. He immediately doubled over, hiccupping. He was a lightweight. I was ashamed of myself. I was fighting hard against my shame. I didn't know how we'd gotten to that point." -- Jean-Patrick Manchette, No Room at the Morgue
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