Home
fiction
The Sleeping Car Murders

The Sleeping Car Murders

by Sébastien Japrisot and Sébastien Japrisot

Translated by Francis Price

Adapted by Gallic Books

Published by: Gallic Books

Imprint: Gallic Books

208 Pages, 5.00 x 7.80 in

Paperback
9781910477939
Published: November 2021

$16.95

Other Retailers:

Bookshop
Barnes & Noble
Edelweiss

Description
Authors
Praise

Described as 'the Graham Greene of France' by The Independent, cult French noir writer Japrisot brings us a murder mystery set in a Parisian landscape of lust, deception and death.

'Sensational' Sunday Times

When the night train pulled into Paris, she was dead. And the riddle began . . .

A beautiful young woman lies sprawled on her berth in the sleeping car of the night train from Marseille to Paris. She is not in the embrace of sleep, or even in the arms of one of her many lovers. She is dead. And the unpleasant task of finding her killer is handed to overworked, crime-weary police detective Pierre ‘Grazzi’ Grazziano, who would rather play hide-and-seek with his little son than cat and mouse with a diabolically cunning, savage murderer.

With corpses turning up everywhere, the question becomes not only who is the killer, but who will be the next victim . . .

Sébastien Japrisot was born in Marseille, France in 1931. He published his first novel, Les Mal Partis, when he was just 17. Japrisot translated the works of J. D. Salinger and pursued a successful career in advertising and publicity. He was a scriptwriter and the director of two films. His first crime novel, The Sleeping Car Murders, was received with great acclaim. His reputation as a master for crime fiction grew with the publication of The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun, A Trap for Cinderella and Rider on the Rain. His novel One Deadly Summer was made into a film starring Isabelle Adjani. A Very Long Engagement was an international bestseller and won the Prix Interallie. He died in 2003.

Helen Weaver is an American writer and translator. She has translated more than fifty books from French. Antonin Artaud: Selected Writings was a Finalist for the National Book Award in translation in 1977.

'A strongly plotted story of murder with a clever ironical ending . . . remarkable' Daily Telegraph

'It becomes more sensational with each chapter' Sunday Times

‘Japrisot writes with warmth, and has a gift for rendering almost every character instantly likable’ New Yorker

‘Sébastien Japrisot’s talents as a storyteller have something of magic about them. You have to wait until the last page to be liberated from his grasp’ Quotidien de Paris

Praise for Sébastien Japrisot

'With an instantly recognisable style and great story-telling techniques, he might be called the Graham Greene of France' The Independent

'The most welcome talent since the early Simenons' New York Times

'Utterly captivating' The Guardian

'A cordon bleu mixture of suspense, sex, trick psychology and fast action' Publishers Weekly

‘Diabolically clever’ Anita Brookner, author of Hotel du Lac

‘Japrisot holds a unique place in contemporary fiction. With the quality and originality of his writing, he has hugely contributed to breaking down the barrier between crime fiction and literary fiction' Le Monde

‘A marvellous storyteller’ Télérama

'Unreeled with the taut, confident shaping of a grand master ... Funny, awful, first-rate. A rich and resonant sonata in black, astutely suspended between mythic tragedy and the grubby pathos of nagging everyday life' Kirkus Reviews

The Sleeping Car Murders

Related Books