French Book Friday
Gallic Books are on a role! They’re publishing some brilliant books at the moment (as they have done for some time!) but the series of French Noir volumes with one coming out later this month is a feast which will fill you even more than a hearty baguette stuffed with ham and cheese…
Here are the beauties:
Pascal Garnier
Now these books aren’t the best for booktrails given that the locations are either vague or fictional, but Pascal Garnier and his writing is that good, it doesn’t matter. These three volumes are the creme de la creme of French Noir and they need to be on your bookshelf right now if you love and appreciate all things Noir and all things French
Pascal Garnier
“Pascal Garnier, who died in March 2010, was a talented novelist, short story writer, children’s author and painter. From his home in the mountains of the Ardèche, he wrote fiction in a noir palette with a cast of characters drawn from ordinary provincial life. Though his writing is often very dark in tone, it sparkles with quirkily beautiful imagery and dry wit. Garnier’s work has been likened to the great thriller writer, Georges Simenon.”
BookTrail’s view
Pascal Garnier is the kind of writer who had that brilliance of the subtle and the unknown in his writing – he started off his stories quite innocently and at first everything is normal and everyday. But then the Garnier twists come into place and that Noir descends. He’s a bit like the French Roald Dahl for me at times as his stories could often happen to anyone – they’re not that far fetched which make them all the more scary. And that person who’s just done that mad act? Could be him standing right beside you…
He doesn’t take nice subjects at all – affairs, road traffic deaths, murders and that’s just three! And the violence level is high – but what I love about his stories is the brilliant eye for detail in characterisation and a tongue in cheek look at madness in various forms. I’m surprised he doesn’t have a microscope named after him for the time he spent looking through one at the human psyche.
