CrimeReads senior editor Dwyer Murphy tagged ten oceanfront crime stories and mysteries. One title on the list:
Jean-Claude Izzo, Chourmo
About ten years ago, Jean-Claude Izzo’s Marseille Trilogy was an international sensation. A decade on, the novels seem again under-read, underappreciated and in danger of slipping back into the pile of international crime fiction forgotten by most Americans. Trust me, that would be a mistake. Izzo’s Marseille is one of the most vividly rendered cities in contemporary literature. His detective, Fabio Montale, is Marseillais through-and-through. Montale’s great passion in life is sitting on the deck of the local café, sipping an espresso (or something stronger come afternoon), and gazing out at the Mediterranean. But the city keeps drawing him back in. In Chourmo, the second in the trilogy, Montale dives into a milieu still sadly resonant in today’s France: xenophobia, organized crime, the Front Nationale, and Islamist extremists. Meanwhile, we get the series’ hallmark: a running account of the Mediterranean bounty (food, drink, sex) Montale consumes along the way.
Read about
the other entries on the list.
--Marshal Zeringue
