Dard Frédéric Libri

A chilling 1950s suspense story of youthful naivety, dark obsession—and the slippery slope to murder Bored with her mundane factory job, her nagging mother, and her alcoholic father-in-law, 17-year-old Louise Lacroix is captivated by a glamorous American couple who moves to her industrial hometown in Northern France. The Roolands' home is an island of color, good humor, and easy living in drab 1950s Léopoldville—a place straight out of Louise’s dreams. Louise is thrilled when she successfully convinces the couple to hire her as their maid. But once she is under their roof, their model life starts to fall apart. Painful secrets from their past emerge, cracks in their relationship appear, and a dark obsession begins to grow . . .

First published in French as Le Monte-Charge in 1961--Title page verso.

On a quiet mountain road near Barcelona, a woman steps out in front of a car. When the driver, a well-known artist, stops to come to her aid, he finds she is alive, but without any memory of who she is or where she has come from. The only clue to her identity is the broken violin lying at her side. The artist tries to help her remember her past, and finds himself falling in love, but as secrets from the woman's forgotten life start to come to light, he finds his new romance turning into a nightmare.

First published in French as La Pelouse in 1952--Title page verso.

A claustrophobic thriller about love gone wrong, from the French master of noir Blaise should never have hung around in that charmless little provincial town. The job offer that attracted him in the first place had failed to materialize. He should have got on the first train back to Paris, but Fate decided otherwise. After a chance encounter with a beautiful blonde in the town post-office, Blaise is hooked. He realizes he'll do anything to stay by her side, and soon finds himself working for her husband, a funeral director. But the tension in this strange love triangle begins to mount, and eventually results in a highly unorthodox burial . . .

An undercover cop and a prison inmate play a tense game of cat and mouse in this brilliantly original thriller by the master of French noir At one of France’s toughest prisons, an undercover cop is attempting to trap an enemy spy by posing as a fellow inmate. So Frank and Hal find themselves holed up together in a grimy, rat-infested cell, each warily eyeing the other. As they plan a daring escape, an unexpected friendship ensues—but which is the cop and which is the spy? Gritty and hard-hitting, The Wicked Go to Hell is a tense, paranoid 1950s thriller about duty and conscience, deception and loyalty, and about what it means to be human—whether you’re the good guy or not.

Il joue les amoureux transis avec la nièce et les Casanova avec la tante. Il se damnerait pour un baiser de la première et rêve de culbuter la seconde. L'une et l'autre le font mourir d'amour et de désir. Mais Jérôme Deuilh, écrivain réputé, venu écrire en Italie un livre sur l'architecture fasciste, se délecte de cette situation équivoque. Amant de cœur pour l'une, étalon à demeure pour l'autre, le Parisien ne se voit plus d'autre avenir qu'entre les murs feutrés du si noble palais Rizzi. Sans se douter qu'un piège, délectable certes, mais inexorable, se referme sur lui... " Une intrigue en tout point envoûtante ". " VSD " " Une gravité, une esquisse de tragique auxquels San-Antonio ne nous avait pas accoutumés. " Jean-René Van der Plaetsen, " Le Figaro " " Un conte de fées terrible. Frédéric Dard n'avait jamais associé avec autant d'émotion le déroulement d'un pur suspense psychologique au lent dévoilement d'une authentique déchirure morale. (...) Le tour d'écrou final, par sa noirceur frénétique, nous laisse pantelants et médusés. " François Rivière, " Libération "