Skeletons in the Closet
Publisher,The New York Review of Books
Publication Date,
Format, Paperback
Weight,
No. of Pages, 176
Eugéne Tarpon, the private-eye protagonist from Manchette’s No Room at the Morgue, appears once more for a characteristically brisk and brutal story full of unexpected comedy and feeling.
Private eye Eugéne Tarpon is back to sleeping in his office, waiting for a paying job to turn up. Then he gets a call from a sometime contact in the police department. He's referring a nice old lady—a distant relative—to Tarpon; her daughter's gone missing and, the copy says, there's no finding her. There are no leads. She's gone. But the old lady's pigheaded. Do me a favor, he tells Tarpon. Humor her. Take her off our hands. Take her money, too. And, by the way, there's no need to investigate the actual business at all.
Tarpon may be down and out, but he's too much of a gentleman for that. Plus, fed an obviously fishy story, he doesn't have it in him to let well enough alone.
Once again, Tarpon is making a very big mistake.
About the Author
Alyson Waters is a prize-winning translator of literary fiction from French to English. She has translated A King Alone by Jean Giono, Proud Beggars by Albert Cossery, No Room at the Morgue by Jean-Patrick Manchette, and Henri Duchemin and His Shadows by Emmanuel Bove, all available from NYRB Classics. For NYRB Kids, she has translated Our Fort by Marie Dorléans and The Tiger Prince by Chen Jiang Hong. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
- Dimensions : 5.03 x 0.49 x 7.97 inches
