The Sleeping Car Murders

by Sébastien Japrisot, Francis Price (Translator), Gallic Books (Adapted by)

Overview

Described as 'the Graham Greene of France' by The Independent, cult French noir writer Japrisot brings us a murder mystery set in a Parisian landscape of lust, deception and death.

'Sensational' Sunday Times 

When the night train pulled into Paris, she was dead. And the riddle began . . .

A beautiful young woman lies sprawled on her berth in the sleeping car of the night train from Marseille to Paris. She is not in the embrace of sleep, or even in the arms of one of her many lovers. She is dead. And the unpleasant task of finding her killer is handed to overworked, crime-weary police detective Pierre ‘Grazzi’ Grazziano, who would rather play hide-and-seek with his little son than cat and mouse with a diabolically cunning, savage murderer.

With corpses turning up everywhere, the question becomes not only who is the killer, but who will be the next victim . . .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781910477939
Publisher:	Gallic Books
Publication date:	11/02/2021
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.80(h) x (d)

About the Author

Sébastien Japrisot was born in Marseille, France in 1931. He published his first novel, Les Mal Partis, when he was just 17. Japrisot translated the works of J. D. Salinger and pursued a successful career in advertising and publicity. He was a scriptwriter and the director of two films. His first crime novel, The Sleeping Car Murders, was received with great acclaim. His reputation as a master for crime fiction grew with the publication of The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun, A Trap for Cinderella and Rider on the Rain. His novel One Deadly Summer was made into a film starring Isabelle Adjani. A Very Long Engagement was an international bestseller and won the Prix Interallie. He died in 2003.

Francis Price is a translator. His translations include God’s Bits of Wood by Ousmane Sembène.

Editorial Reviews

09/27/2021

The discovery of a strangled body in the sleeping car of the night train from Marseille to Paris propels this ingenious whodunit from Japrisot (1931–2003), first published in 1963. The victim is identified as Georgette Thomas, a cosmetics firm saleswoman, who was in Marseille on business. Insp. Antoine Grazziano, the police detective who investigates, assumes from the murder method that the killer wasn’t a professional. He divides the reasons for the killing into three possibilities—that Thomas was strangled because of something that preceded her trip, something that happened to her in Marseille, or something that occurred on her return train journey. But as he explores each possibility and their implications logically, Thomas’s fellow passengers in the sleeping car are knocked off, one by one. Japrisot heightens the suspense by toggling between Grazziano’s inquiries and the other passengers’ perspectives. The surprising murder motive is worthy of Agatha Christie herself, and the twisty plot contrasts nicely with the prosaic, appealing sleuth. Georges Simenon fans will be engrossed. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

'A strongly plotted story of murder with a clever ironical ending . . . remarkable' Daily Telegraph 

'It becomes more sensational with each chapter' Sunday Times 

‘Japrisot writes with warmth, and has a gift for rendering almost every character instantly likable’ New Yorker 

‘Sébastien Japrisot’s talents as a storyteller have something of magic about them. You have to wait until the last page to be liberated from his grasp’ Quotidien de Paris 

Praise for Sébastien Japrisot 

'With an instantly recognisable style and great story-telling techniques, he might be called the Graham Greene of France' The Independent

'The most welcome talent since the early Simenons' New York Times

'Utterly captivating' The Guardian

'A cordon bleu mixture of suspense, sex, trick psychology and fast action' Publishers Weekly

‘Diabolically clever’ Anita Brookner, author of Hotel du Lac

‘Japrisot holds a unique place in contemporary fiction. With the quality and originality of his writing, he has hugely contributed to breaking down the barrier between crime fiction and literary fiction' Le Monde

‘A marvellous storyteller’ Télérama

'Unreeled with the taut, confident shaping of a grand master ... Funny, awful, first-rate. A rich and resonant sonata in black, astutely suspended between mythic tragedy and the grubby pathos of nagging everyday life' Kirkus Reviews 

From the Publisher

11/01/2021

The strangled corpse of Georgette Thomas is found drooping from her berth in the overnight train from Marseilles to Paris, after five adjacent passengers have alighted. For stolid detective Pierre "Grazzi" Grazziano it's all in a day's work (not much lightened by his preoccupied boss or inattentive flunky), but his investigative routine hits a snag when somebody starts killing the witnesses. In his 1962 crime debut, French novelist/screenwriter Japrisot (1931–2003) subverts the cool, just-the-facts surface of his prose with sudden dives into the psyches roiling beneath, delivering some exquisitely disorienting twists and shocks before the story settles into a more conventional whodunit. The 1965 film adaptation was Costa-Gavras's directorial debut. VERDICT Although not his best, this swift French New Wave spin on the police procedural exhibits much of the deft narrative legerdemain that Japrisot would perfect in four subsequent award-winning crime novels, all recently reissued by Gallic Books, and all good bets wherever Georges Simenon is popular.

Library Journal