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Nestor Burma #N-03
Mayhem in the Marais
Quando Nestor Burma va per recuperare del denaro da un usuraio di Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, lo trova morto, con la faccia sporca di rossetto. Due gli elementi che permetteranno a Nestor Burma di risolvere il caso, in un'indagine dai toni profondamente umani: un orsacchiotto di peluche e un paio di mutandine di nylon. A questo punto una serie di strane coincidenze verificatesi nel quartiere parigino del Marais rendono ancora più complicata l'avventura del buon Nestor Burma.
176 pages, Paperback
First published February 25, 1955
38 people want to read
About the author
Léo Malet
171 books42 followersLéo Malet est né à Montpellier en 1909. Attiré par l'écriture et l'anarchie, il décide à l'âge de 16 ans de « monter » à Paris, ou pour survivre il effectue une multitude de petits métiers. En 1930, il fait la connaissance d'André Breton et découvre le surréalisme, dont il devient un familier. Après la guerre, Léo Malet rencontre Louis Chavance qui lui suggère d'écrire des romans policiers, un genre encore inexistant en France. Malet produit alors d'alertes contrefaçons de Hard boiled américains qu'il signe des pseudonymes de Frank Harding ou Léo Latimer. En 1943, il publie sous son véritable nom, 120 rue de la gare, un roman policier très français qui met en scène pour la première fois l'illustre Nestor Burma. C'est en 1953, lors d'une promenade, que Léo Malet aura l'idée de faire de son privé un nouveau « piéton de Paris ». Le soleil naît derrière le Louvre inaugure la série des Nouveaux Mystères de Paris, un an après. Chroniques réalistes de la vie des quartiers parisiens, Les Nouveaux Mystères de Paris donnent définitivement à son personnage ses lettres de noblesse. Avec 55 titres (dont 29 consacrés à Nestor Burma), Léo Malet a bien mérité des Lettres françaises. Il est mort en 1996.
(source: Pocket.fr)
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Leo Malet was born in Montpellier. He had little formal education and began work as a cabaret singer at "La Vache Enragee" in Montmartre, Paris in 1925.
In the 1930s, he was closely aligned with the Surrealists, and was close friends with André Breton, René Magritte and Yves Tanguy, amongst others. During this time, he published several volumes of poetry.
He died in Châtillon, a little town just south of Paris where he had lived for most of his life, four days before his 87th birthday.
Though having dabbled in many genres, he is most famous for Nestor Burma, the anti-hero of Les Nouveaux Mystères de Paris. Burma, a cynical private detective, is an astute speaker of argot (French slang), an ex-Anarchist, a serial monogamist and an inveterate pipe smoker. Of the 33 novels detailing his adventures, eighteen take place in a sole arrondissement of Paris, in a sub-series of his exploits which Malet dubbed the "New Mysteries of Paris" quoting Eugene Sue's seminal "feuilleton"; though he never completed the full 20 arrondissements as he originally planned. Apart from the novels, five short stories were also published, bringing the total of Burma's adventures to 38.
The comic artist Jacques Tardi adapted some of his books much to the author's approval claiming that he was the sole person to have visually understood his books; Tardi also provided cover illustrations for the Fleuve Noir editions of the novels, released from the 1980s onward.
(source: Pocket.fr)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Leo Malet was born in Montpellier. He had little formal education and began work as a cabaret singer at "La Vache Enragee" in Montmartre, Paris in 1925.
In the 1930s, he was closely aligned with the Surrealists, and was close friends with André Breton, René Magritte and Yves Tanguy, amongst others. During this time, he published several volumes of poetry.
He died in Châtillon, a little town just south of Paris where he had lived for most of his life, four days before his 87th birthday.
Though having dabbled in many genres, he is most famous for Nestor Burma, the anti-hero of Les Nouveaux Mystères de Paris. Burma, a cynical private detective, is an astute speaker of argot (French slang), an ex-Anarchist, a serial monogamist and an inveterate pipe smoker. Of the 33 novels detailing his adventures, eighteen take place in a sole arrondissement of Paris, in a sub-series of his exploits which Malet dubbed the "New Mysteries of Paris" quoting Eugene Sue's seminal "feuilleton"; though he never completed the full 20 arrondissements as he originally planned. Apart from the novels, five short stories were also published, bringing the total of Burma's adventures to 38.
The comic artist Jacques Tardi adapted some of his books much to the author's approval claiming that he was the sole person to have visually understood his books; Tardi also provided cover illustrations for the Fleuve Noir editions of the novels, released from the 1980s onward.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 6, 2019
Tous les Nestor Burma se ressemblent, c'est pour ça qu'on les lit. Ce qui compte, c'est le langage, les quelques personnages récurrents comme dans toutes les bonnes séries, et le travail presque journalistique de représentation des différents quartiers et milieux sociaux. Même si les adapations en BD aident le lecteur trop jeune pour imaginer ce Paris qui n'existe plus, et sont de loin meilleures des adaptations télé avec Guy Marchand, les romans sont toujours la seule source authentique de l'esprit de Léo Malet, un espèce de docteur Destouches en des chiens écrasés.
May 10, 2023
Der Privatdetektiv Nestor Burma führt uns durch das 3. Arrondissement eines Paris, das es so nicht mehr gibt. Schon allein deswegen lesenswert. Der trockene schwarze Humor und die Tatsache, dass der Text aus den 50er Jahren stammt, lassen mich gerade noch so ein Auge zudrücken was die political correctness ;) oder das sexualisierte Frauenbild, das von Odette oder Miss Pearl verkörpert wird, angeht.
May 12, 2017
Le roman commence mal, et j'ai cru m'être gouré. Heureusement, il y en a pas mal de surprises! (Comme d'hab, avec deux roberts de qualité en bonus.)
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October 16, 2017Fievre au Marais reminded me of the movie the lady in the lake where it is all centered on the detective and he keeps being hit on the head!!! In all his novels there are some expressions and comments that puts one ill at ease... one wonders if he is racist, not a big racist just an everyday type of French racism, or if he is truly thinking that arabs are "bicots"... and jews of course money grabbing creatures...
Or is he just giving the full picture of the man of the street in these new mysteres de Paris... after all the mysteres were full of "gredins" and princes... but here we are all a little crooked, and all fantastic... Nestor Burma is just fantastic, ready to steal money from corpses, ready to give money away... His assistant Helene is wonderful, a "vraie jeune fille" who sleeps with the boss, but that is just because it is life, and life is short... especially if you know Nestor Burma...
Or is he just giving the full picture of the man of the street in these new mysteres de Paris... after all the mysteres were full of "gredins" and princes... but here we are all a little crooked, and all fantastic... Nestor Burma is just fantastic, ready to steal money from corpses, ready to give money away... His assistant Helene is wonderful, a "vraie jeune fille" who sleeps with the boss, but that is just because it is life, and life is short... especially if you know Nestor Burma...
July 29, 2016
A disclaimer: I read this in French, and my French is far from perfect. So it's entirely possible that I've missed nuances of language and subtext that make this book better than it seems.
That being said, I found this a fairly derivative and uninteresting noir story. It reads like a not-particularly-creative rip-off of Raymond Chandler, but Malet's hero, Nestor Burma, parrots Philip Marlowe's cynicism and hard-boiled exterior without absorbing any of the pathos and self-loathing that make Marlowe such a great character. The other characters are equally stock: the neurotic and beautiful femme fatale, the sneeringly caustic career criminal, the faithful wisecracking secretary. Nothing new here to make it worth reading.
On another note, it makes a good read for practicing French comprehension, as the language is so repetitive.
That being said, I found this a fairly derivative and uninteresting noir story. It reads like a not-particularly-creative rip-off of Raymond Chandler, but Malet's hero, Nestor Burma, parrots Philip Marlowe's cynicism and hard-boiled exterior without absorbing any of the pathos and self-loathing that make Marlowe such a great character. The other characters are equally stock: the neurotic and beautiful femme fatale, the sneeringly caustic career criminal, the faithful wisecracking secretary. Nothing new here to make it worth reading.
On another note, it makes a good read for practicing French comprehension, as the language is so repetitive.
February 26, 2012
I read this over a weekend – I love these Nestor Bruma detective novels. The only downside is that they are French trasnlations and about 6 or 7 out of 40 or 40 have been transalted.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews