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A review by tfitoby
Three to Kill by Jean-Patrick Manchette
4.0
Three to Kill is the last of the Manchette ouevre currently translated in to English and I seem to have saved the best for last. This slim volume is a matter of factly violent novel, an indictment of the spurious nature of the petite bourgeois lifestyle, a wilderness adventure tale of self discovery in the vein of [b:The Thirty-Nine Steps|147114|The Thirty-Nine Steps|John Buchan|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328011493s/147114.jpg|2422487] and a bleak piece of noir existentialism rolled in to one.
The influence of [a:Georges Simenon|9693|Georges Simenon|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1192221335p2/9693.jpg] is more obviously evident than ever, this being the story of a lost middle manager rejecting the self imposed shackles of his life after a traumatic event - his attempted murder in this case - and much like Kees Popinga realising that life can continue without possessions and that cosmetic appearances are not as important as he first thought.
Whilst the criticism of French society isn't as direct as in his other novels the message is as obvious as ever, especially with the fabulously unexpected (and perhaps implausible) final chapter turning the screw just a little tighter. As with Simenon and even the Martin Beck series of literary crime novels the criticism of society and human nature in the work of Manchette walks hand in hand with and even subjugates the crimes themselves and it is for this that Manchette is seemingly deified by French critics.
I hope that there are more Manchette's being translated for future publication as he was a wonderful novellist who could achieve much more with his prose as others in a quarter of the word count and I just can't see myself learning French any time soon sadly.
The influence of [a:Georges Simenon|9693|Georges Simenon|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1192221335p2/9693.jpg] is more obviously evident than ever, this being the story of a lost middle manager rejecting the self imposed shackles of his life after a traumatic event - his attempted murder in this case - and much like Kees Popinga realising that life can continue without possessions and that cosmetic appearances are not as important as he first thought.
Whilst the criticism of French society isn't as direct as in his other novels the message is as obvious as ever, especially with the fabulously unexpected (and perhaps implausible) final chapter turning the screw just a little tighter. As with Simenon and even the Martin Beck series of literary crime novels the criticism of society and human nature in the work of Manchette walks hand in hand with and even subjugates the crimes themselves and it is for this that Manchette is seemingly deified by French critics.
I hope that there are more Manchette's being translated for future publication as he was a wonderful novellist who could achieve much more with his prose as others in a quarter of the word count and I just can't see myself learning French any time soon sadly.