>
>
>Came across PBs of Passenger on the U by Claude
Aveline and Fire Will
>Freeze by Margaret Millar this afternoon. I
remembered discussions
>about French crime novelists, but just searched the
archives and
>Aveline wasn't mentioned. I've never read any Millar
and didn't know
>if this would be a good place to start. Any
comments?
>.../...
>Kent Morgan
>
"Passenger of the U" (L'abonné ¤e la ligne U - 1947) by Claude
Aveline is not at all HB or noir. It's from a French author
of the detection vein. However his novels were well written
(much better than the average of the genre in his time- in
fact he was already a reputed author of
"literary" works when he published his first mystery in 1932:
"La double mort de Fr餩ric Belot" - The double death of Fr.B-
which is probably his best mystery novel) and he always used
very intriguing stories and convolutions. Was very popular in
France; most of his books are still in print there.
"Passenger..." is the first novel of a cycle of 5 novels, all
with inspector Belot. In fact the 4 firsts are "prequels" to
the 1932's "La double mort..." In 1932, Aveline also shocked
the literary French circles by writing a preface claiming
that "there is no distinction to be made between 'real
literature' and popular lit with its genres as mysteries and
adventures stories (the "cheap" novels)"; Aveline claimed
also: there is no
"inferior" lit genre. All this may seem trivial, but, believe
me, for 1932 and France of that time, it was more than
daring...
E.Borgers POLAR NOIR http://www.geocities.com/polarnoir
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