Le prochain Quais du Polar?

 Bon ben je suis très en retard dans les nouvelles. Je m'en suis rendu compte hier: j'ai manqué Quais du Polar cette année encore. C'était du 5 au 7 avril. Pas que j'y serais allé, étant loin de Lyon, mais ça fait partie des évènements que j'aime souligner sur le blogue. Et puis j'aurais pu y être, ça tombait sur les vacances de Pâques de mon fils. Je songe à y aller un jour, peut-être l'an prochain, qui sait. Faudrait convaincre ma femme et Wolfie.Cela dit, malgré tout, on ne boudera pas son plaisir: quelle superbe affiche, très film noir.

New Cluedo, new character

Christmas is coming, board games are getting out, as 'Tis the season to be playing. For tonight's post, I decided to blog about one of my favourite board game. I might be late in the news, but here is what I found recently: yet another release of Cluedo (or Clue as I have known it growing up). The setting and characters are the same, except for one detail: Mrs White the maid was replaced by Dr Orchid, an Asian woman dressed in black and pink. I have two questions about this new Dr Orchid: Why? And was it necessary? Yes, Clue is old fashioned, has stock characters based on English whodunit stereotypes, it's neither inventive nor original. But it is part of its charm. I can bypass the way the old ones are pictured, much younger than they should be, with a sexied up Reverend Green and a rejuvenated Mrs Peacock. I don't think this new femme fatale (and apparently all female characters on the board are now young and sexy). So this Christmas, if we can, we will play the old Cluedo game, with the the true classic characters. All of them.

Outside the art gallery

I was a bit gutted recently: as I was walking downtown with little Wolfie, who was asleep in his cot, I saw that the local art gallery was having an exhibition of Fabian Perez. His latest works, apparently. Furthermore, he was there. I had known about it, but had forgotten. Wolfie being fast asleep in his cot,I was tempted to go in quickly, check the painting and maybe even say a word to the maestro, whom I briefly met once. I did not for a few reasons: 1)I looked utterly unglamorous in my worn out jeans and old jumper, 2)it was very crowded and did not want Wolfie to wake up and 3)I did not feel like I belonged there, if that makes sense. But I could at least admire the painting in the window. Perez makes great femmes fatales. I was all the happier that it was one I had not seen yet.

Sinner Man

Tonight’s reading recommendation and my first reading suggestion of the year: Sinner Man by Lawrence Block. Which I bought because it’s of Lawrence Block and a long lost classic and most definitely NOT because of its cover. Which is still gorgeous and pulpy, mixing Eros, Thanatos and hard liquor. In it, insurance salesman and utter loser Don Barshter accidentally kills his wife. To escape justice, he takes up a new identity and a new persona: up and coming mobster Nathaniel Crowley. He soon thrives as Crowley and is far better, richer and happier as a gangster as he ever was as a salesman and husband. But a smart femme fatale he took a self destructive interest in could destroy everything. It’s a clever and gripping Noir variation on the Jekyll and Hyde theme and as much a thriller as it is a tragedy. There is a fascinating afterword from Block as well, explaining the genesis of the story, its disappearance and its borderline miraculous rediscovery decades later. A must read.

The Gutter and the Grave

I blogged about it recently, but as I finished it since then, I thought I could have it as today 's reading suggestion. I am talking of course about The Gutter and the Grave, by Ed McBain. Surprisingly it does not feature the detectives of the 87th Precinct, but ex private eye turned drunkard and bum Matt Cordell, who lost his license and everything else, including himself, when he beat up the lover of his wife. Narrated by Cordell himself, the story uses many tropes, some would say clichés, of hard-boiled crime fiction: an investigation on a minor crime (someone stealing from a cashier) quickly leads to one on a murder, then a second murder, there are femmes fatales a plenty and a good deal of shady characters, an oppressive heatwave, violence of all kinds. What makes the novel stand above other similar ones is the strength of McBain's writing: vivid imagery, sharp dialogues, genuine characters behind their archetypes. One cannot go wrong with Ed McBain.

Crimes on sale (at £1.99)

I decided to take a break from epic historical novels and I am now reading crime fiction again. Well, I say I have decided but it is not quite true. As I have a pile of books to read, I just showed the couples of novels I was considering to Blonde Tickler during her last visit and she said: "this one looks like the best of them all". So I followed her advice as I trust her instincts. The book she was referring to was The Gutter and the Grave by Ed McBain. I know McBain a lot, but this is a new reading experience for me as the novel is not from his 87th Precinct series. It features an ex private eye now drunkard homeless Matt Cordell, who lost his license after beating up his wife's lover, and a few femmes fatales. I bought it at £1.99 at the local Oxfam. That is a true bargain for quality crime fiction and one of the few times when Ed McBain ventured into proper hardboiled territory.

About secret passages

This is the classic board of Clue (or Cluedo as it was originally known in the UK) which is one of my favourite board games. there are two sets of secret passages: one between the kitchen and the studio and one between the conservatory and the lounge. As I blogged before, I always loved the mansion in the game. For many reasons, but one of them being the presence of these secret passages. Secret passages might be cheap tropes in whodunits an detective fiction, so gratuitous in fact that they were heavily criticized early on, but they were also a common element in my make belief games as a child. My brothers and I used them as plot points, sometimes as atmospheric settings themselves (and not merely part of the setting) or even as MacGuffin. We even had a few "real ones" to use sometimes (read my post here). And it never completely left me: I still love the idea of secret passages in fiction, if used properly.

Miss Scarlet rolls first!

Once upon a time, my brothers and I used to play Clue/Cluedo every weekend afternoons, sometimes evenings too. It was, it is still, one of my favourite board games, the one crime fiction story that never disappointed, because the resolution was always different every time you played it. Playing between ourselves, we learned the rules in details. Playing with others, we discovered that nobody else had bothered reading the rules and were just playing using common rules from other board games. There is one in particular that is often disregarded: unlike other board games, where the one that makes the highest roll on the dice plays first, in Clue it is Miss Scarlett (or Scarlet, as the American version of the game spells her name) who makes the first move. Then Colonel Mustard, then whoever. Don't ask me why it is Miss Scarlett. Because lady's first, because she is also a femme fatale and the other women on the board rather plain looking, in any case this is something that must be respected.

New collection by Fabian Perez

I have just learned it from a mailer I received sent from an art gallery: Fabian Perez has released a new collection. I love his work, because the world his characters live in and the stories the paintings seem to be narrating seem to be the one of hardboiled crime fiction. The characters themselves are pure archetypes, many of them (but not exclusively) femmes fatales, like this Saba with glass of red. Anyway, while there are no exhibitions with the maestro showing up (and that might be for the best, I don't want to risk being coerced into buying a painting), I think if I can find time I will try to go to the art gallery and take a look at this new collection.

The coral snake analogy

At the moment, I am reading The Martini Shot by George Pelecanos, my favourite crime writer. It is a collection of short stories, mostly crime related, and so far he proved that he controls this form just as much as he controls crime novels. Among the many things I love about his writing, is that he has a way with using old archetypes and bringing them into a contemporary, realistic setting and making them fresh and relevant. In one of his short stories, When You're Hungry, the protagonist, a private investigator looking for a wealth man who faked his death to enjoy life in the tropics, makes this analogy about the mistress of his target: "When I was a child I spotted a coral snake and thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I started to follow it into the brush, when my mother slapped me very hard across the face." This is, in essence, what a femme fatale is. Someone beautiful, elegant, yet deadly and merciless, who exerts a fascination so intense than one overcomes the fear he or she may have towards the femme fatale. It is explained without even mentioning the term, by a simple analogy that works. I loved this analogy so much that I wanted to share it here. For more on femmes fatales, please read this entry on TV tropes. For more on coral snakes, please read Wikipedia. But truly, I think you have all you need to know with the analogy Pelecanos made.

Quais du Polar

Petite annonce pour les amateurs de romans policiers vivant dans l'Hexagone: j'ai appris sur Facebook via la page de Deon Meyer qu'il existe un festival du roman policier à Lyon, qui s'appelle Quais du Polar. Du premier au trois avril inclusivement. Pour les chanceux qui peuvent y aller, Deon Meyer y est, alors vous êtes doublement chanceux. Croyez-le ou non, je n'ai jamais mis les pieds dans un festival de littérature policière. Mais j'adorerais voir celui-là. Ah oui, et le poster est joli, avec Marianne en femme fatale, blonde hitchcockienne sous la pluie, sur fond rouge sang... Ca rentre au poste, comme on dit au Saguenay.

Bohemians

I took this picture from the Facebook page of artist Fabian Perez. It is called Nomades III and I think he is in a Gypsie/Bohemian creative mood these days, if the painting is recent. Anyway, Bohemians seem to be one of his (new?) pet subjects. Like he did with the bordellos, he glamorized the Nomadic life, here the practice of chiromancy by two femmes fatales being at the center of the frame. They could belong to the universe of Carmen, either the opera or the novella. In fact, I wonder if this is not Perez's take on the character of Carmen. One of these two women could be her.

With love and bullets! (?)

I did not upload a cover from Detective Tales since November. I was not sure to continue this tradition, but for some reason today I decided to give it a go. It is Valentine's Day, and people might want to read something appropriate for the day. Instead of some soppy romantic stories, how about some crime fiction? Something old with a healthy cocktail of Eros and Thanatos. With love and bullets. So I found this cover, from February 1953 and it has this great title, fitting the day (and hence I used it for my own post title): "With Love and Bullets!" The title is worth the cover. I have no idea if this image is related to the story itself. But it is a neat one: an exotic beauty cornered by two men, one police officer in uniform and another one in civilian clothes. Is she a femme fatale, a damsel in distress? Is she both? Are the policemen corrupted, or doing their duty by cornering her and I guess threatening her (the one in civilian is holding a menacing finger, in a warning gesture). It is deliciously ambiguous.

The world's sexiest criminal?

I know I may be reporting old news, but soon she will be in court, on the 17th of November, so this is in fact still very new. I am referring to Stéphanie Beaudoin, a cat burglar from Québec, who was dubbed "the world's sexiest criminal" by tabloids around the globe, among them the Daily Mail. Which is where I learned about her. A trashy right wing tabloid from the UK. She is, in essence, a real-life Catwoman. But from Victoriaville, Québec. And, behind the glamour shots that made her famous through social medias, she is a far more sinister than Catwoman: not only is she accused of 42 acts of breaking and entering, but she also owned illegal firearms.

That said, I must confess I have a certain fascination for the woman. Not pride, even though she is from Québec. I do not have twisted pride for home grown criminals, however good looking and famous they can be. But she is a character that belongs to crime fiction. Not merely a creature of the social medias who revealed her, but the embodiment of the archetype of the femme fatale. There is the bikini shot of course, but also the one where she is holding a machine gun, in a short dress and wearing jewelry and glasses. Elegant yet deadly. An artist would draw a female character like that, I would deem it cliché. Even her appearance going to court, with the glasses, confirms her status as a femme fatale icon: she is a bit of a chameleon, not unlike another famous cat burglar. And well, it is fascinating. I do not find crime sexy, yet I love crime news like a sucker and find it source of inspiration for crime fiction, where crime can be sexy, in a cathartic way.

The death of a femme fatale

You might think Vraie Fiction is turning into an obituary blog since the 12th of August. But I learned yesterday that the legendary Lauren Bacall died. She was 89. I know at this age, it is not a tragedy, but all the same, I have to confess it saddened me more than the suicide of Robin Williams. She was the kind of sophisticated beauty that we don't see very often. Strangely enough, I watched The Big Sleep again this weekend, in which she played femme fatale Vivien Rutledge so brilliantly. Ironic, that a femme fatale should live to 89. This is the first thing that came to my mind.

A femme fatale

This is another painting from Fabian Perez, who is my favorite contemporary painter. its title is Tess IV, according to his website, which I find rather dry and impersonal. There is another one titled Saba with Glass of Red Wine, featuring the same model I think, if not the same character, but I prefer this one. In the Saba painting, she looks rather bored, in this one she seems to be enjoying her red wine very much. I would have titled it Femme Fatale. I would title most of Perez's painting featuring women Femme Fatale actually. He painted the archetype perfectly, its dark haired version at least. This is why I was making a distinction between the model and the character earlier: whoever is the model, whether her name is Saba or not, she is not this character, living a completely different life on the frame, an existence one of glamor and luxury, but not devoid of danger, maybe even a hint of tragedy.

Apart from my usual fascination for the work of Fabian Perez (even though I am a philistine when it comes to art), I am uploading this painting because it is one that accompanies the hot summer nights of drinking to come. It it is a beautiful summer day today, if a bit hot and sticky, I thought to bring a bit of glamor and exoticism to it. Perez is the painter of hot summer nights. I also love to read crime fiction and as I mentioned before I associate many of his paintings with crime fiction. If I could write a story for each one of them, it would be some hardboiled, even noir stuff. With plenty of femmes fatales to write about. Sadly, I did not see yet his new exhibition. Something to look forward to, if it is stoll going on.

A new exhibition on Fabian Perez

Sometimes I receive bits of news that get me excited. Like recently, I received a mailer from a local art gallery about an upcoming exhibition of Fabian Perez's new paintings. The very same gallery that made me discover his work two years ago. The gallery has sadly moved from my town, but they relocated in a nearby town, so I can still visit them. I love his paintings for many reasons, the main one being that they often look like scenes taken from a crime fiction story, old pulp magazines with a Latin twist. Pulp magazines, but not cheap ones, images that would have abandoned naïve imagery for lush and unapologizing glamour, even when he paints a man offering to light a woman's cigaret at a bar. I have decided to upload this painting to accompany my post. Sadly I have no idea of its title. I hope to take some pictures of my own when I visit the gallery.

Hard men and femmes fatales

I feel a bit guilty every time I upload a painting by him (or a picture of a painting by him) on Vraie Fiction, but I can't afford to purchase Fabian Perez and he is maybe my favorite painter. My favorite living one anyway. This one is called The Proposal. There are other named like this one, showing the same scene, but this is my favorite among them. I have decided to blog about it because... Well, because. Because I blogged about an archetype yesterday, I guess, and I consider Perez' characters to be very much archetypical. I know it was not the intention, but I have the feeling he paints crime fiction. This is the first thing I thought about him when I discovered his work in a local art gallery, about two years ago. The art gallery has now moved to a nearby town, but they still exhibit the work of Fabian Perez, so I thought I would pay it a visit one day and actually take my own pictures of the paintings.

So why this painting in particular? The atmosphere displayed is more of a torrid summer night than a cool and wet springtime one like the ones we have now. But I had not published one on Vraie Fiction since June 2013. And the few times I showed his work, not once a woman was featured in the painting. And Perez is famous for his glamorous portraits of women. I was mentioning archetypes. Perez pretty much paints femmes fatales. This is not the most obvious one, but I love the subtlety of the painting. We do not know exactly what the woman is proposing, but we can imagine. This is a hard man, as Perez also paints manly men, full of testosterone and self-assured, but we can see he is not as strong as this whisper. There are the usual tropes of Perez: the (sinful) red wine, the cigaret's smoke, but at the center of the picture is the whisper. I am a philistine when it comes to art, but I can appreciate it all the same.

The Detective Tales cover for March

Now the time has come to upload again on Vraie Fiction a cover from Detective Tales. This time from March 1943. The selection is getting more and more difficult, both in 2012 and 2013 I took very melodramatic covers, with the frame completely filled with characters and full of action. This cover could almost belong to the whodunit genre as well as the hardboiled one. You have the investigator/hero, a squared jaw atheltic man, holding a... magnifying glass, the tool of sleuths from detection fiction, holding a piece of cloth that is being clutched by a dead man's hand (a hand turning to green for sinister effects, I might add). The piece of red cloth belong to the sleeve of a woman's dress, who is now, of course, holding a gun by the hero's head. I wonder how the hero will get out of this situation, with a magnifying glass as his apparent sole weapon. I am dying to read this tale, like many other from this pulp magazine.

Calembours policiers

Au cours de mes vacances, j'ai lu avec plaisir Fatale Liaison de Jean-Hugues Oppel, "un polar dont vous êtes les héros". Petit détail: je l'ai payé, alors que ce livre était lors de sa sortie offert gratuitement, comme article promotionnel. Il est donc maintenant rarissime. Qui sait, un jour, il vaudra peut-être même plus cher que le prix payé par moi. Mais je digresse... C'est bien entendu un livre-jeu, mais aussi une parodie des romans policiers. Il est truffé de calembours, pas toujours bons, mais ils m'ont fait tous fait rire. Le titre est déjà un peu un calembour, on s'en rend compte plus tard. De même que le sous-titre. Et je vous donne déjà la clé de l'énigme en disant cela. Mais il y en a d'autres dans le bouquin. Mon préféré est un  hommage au classique de Dashiell Hammett: alors que la femme fatale vous frappe avec la satue d'un oiseau de proie, vous dites: "C'est un faucon" et elle répond: "Et vous un vrai." Comme jeu de mots tordu, difficile de faire mieux, ou pire.