Three to Kill

By Jean-Patrick Manchette

Late one night in Paris, travelling salesman Georges Gerfaut stops to help an injured motorist to hospital. Three days later, while Gerfaut is on holiday with his wife and daughters, he is attacked by two men. Quickly realising the duo?s murderous intent, but perplexed as to their motives, Gerfaut goes on the run, communicating with his family by telegram. Terrified, yet exhilarated by this release from his humdrum life, Gerfaut resolves to turn the tables and track down his pursuers. Jean-Patrick Manchette presents a clash between two opposing worlds: a conventional, middle-class existence cluttered by possessions and responsibilities, and a violent criminal underworld. In Georges Gerfaut we find an unlikely hero, an ordinary man thrust into extraordinary circumstances and forced to fight for his life. Three to Kill is another riveting slice of ?70s noir by a masterful stylist, ironist, and social critic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Serpent's Tail
• Release date: Jan 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781847655141

Jean-Patrick Manchette

Jean-Patrick Manchette (Marsella, 1942-París, 1995), guionista, crítico literario y de cine, está considerado uno de los autores más destacados de la novela negra francesa de las décadas de los setenta y ochenta. Se reveló en 1971 con El asunto N’Gustro y publicó una decena de novelas policiacas, además de crónicas, diarios, traducciones, etc. Apasionado por el cine americano y el jazz, militante durante años de la extrema izquierda y muy influenciado por la Internacional Situacionista, Manchette utiliza la forma de la novela policiaca como trampolín para la crítica social: la novela negra reencuentra así su función original. Fue reconocido por la crítica como el padre espiritual del néo-polar. Caza al asesino, una de sus obras maestras indiscutibles, ha sido recientemente adaptada al cine por Pierre Morel, protagonizada por Sean Penn y Javier Bardem.

Reviews for Three to Kill

[kerns222 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Your basic french mystery: short, tough, gritty, noir, and remembers 1968.

[guybrarian_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In this re-print of a 1976 French title with a spare, vicious elegance, businessman Georges Gerfault stops to aid the victim of what seems to be a roadside accident but is in reality a failed hit job, and finds himself in the crosshairs of a pair of hired guns, Carlo and Bastien, who make their first attempt on his life while he vacations with his family at the sunny seaside, and chase him across the country and right out of his complacent bourgeois life. The swift, lean succession of unadorned brutality is related by a narrator not so much omniscient as insouciant, whose cool and clinical description of the desperate events unfolding before his impassive camera lens is leavened with Gallic shrugs and sly humor that is as reminiscent of Voltaire as Camus. The result is rather like being a passenger in a precision sportscar hurtling down the highway at insane speeds, wondering if the driver’s nonchalant demeanor and offhand remarks on the passing flora and fauna owe to his supreme expertise and confidence in German engineering, or to utter suicidal indifference. I swiftly gobbled up the only other Manchette currently available here — The Prone Gunman — and eagerly await the translation of his eight other crime novels. Imo, Americans don’t read (or have access to) nearly enough popular literature from other cultures — not that we’re obliged to be cosmopolitan in our tastes, but the rest of the world has so many refreshingly different stories to tell us. The current boom in Euro-mysteries is an encouraging sign.

[lriley_43 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A travelling salesman pulls over on the road very early one morning to help an apparent accident victim. Instead he finds a wounded victim of an attempted mob hit. He takes him to the nearest hospital (where the victim soon dies) not realizing he is being followed by the assassins who are now out to get him. They're coming to get him and anyone or anything associated with him--including pets. Watch him as he turns the table on his killers and the man who hires them. This a fast paced and very nasty thriller told in a very ironic and compelling manner. Manchette is quite the savvy social critic besides. I would like to see more of his work. A fun read and a great book.