May I quote a reviewer – “Writing so dark it gives a new meaning to the word noir.” Welp, this is definitely murky to the extreme, but a lot of that was on myself as the reader.
Written by French crime writer Manchette in 1976, Skeletons in the Closet is a fast paced tale of private eye Eugene Tarpon, hired to theoretically search for the daughter of a little old lady. There are no leads, and those who hire him are connected with the police, and just want to make nice for the old lady.
Now Tarpon may be reduced to living out of his office, but he has no problem smelling something fishy about this whole business. Plus he has a bad habit of not being able to leave well enough alone. And so off we go. All sorts of post-war vehicles pop up, as well as all sorts of arms (brandished about quite frequently but rarely used), as well as hide-and-go chases along all sorts of routes in and out of Paris keep the action running at top speed, and I’m just barely hanging on.
Much like American film noir (think The Maltese Falcon and Double Indemnity), it’s easy to get lost in the who’s double crossing who. Although I suspect it would have been easier to follow as a movie. But good news. In the round-up of what happened to who at the end, it is mentioned that
Most of the little monks and nuns, having managed to prove that they were imbeciles, were released and had to reenlist in other sects of one sort of another.
So there is that.
