LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
Maxim Jakubowski Highly Recommended.
A past winner of the Crime Writers' Association International Dagger, Manotti is a French academic and crime writer with a sure touch for the nuances of contemporary society and an eye for the currents of violence thread through everyday life. In 1987 two prisoners break out of jail in a refuse lorry. One is soon killed in a bank robbery while the other settles in Paris under a borrowed name and becomes a security guard and, at night, writes the story of a Red Brigades member he'd heard about in prison. To his surprise the book is published and becomes a bestseller, which brings his past and implacable enemies as well as cops back to the surface. A short crime novel that packs a mean punch and looks at the reality behind today's headlines.
Maxim Jakubowski
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Escape Synopsis
It’s1987. Two prisoners, both Italian, break out of prison in a rubbish lorry. One heads for Paris, the other to Milan. The first, Carlo, is killed in a shoot-out during a bank robbery – under suspicious circumstances. Frightened by the manhunt launched by Interpol, the second prisoner, Filippo, returns to Paris where he becomes a security guard. He spends his nights writing the story of a Red Brigadier, as recounted to him in prison by Carlo. His landlady Cristina finds him a publisher and the book becomes a bestseller. Filippo, carefully coached by his publishers’ press office, steadfastly refuses to own the story, insisting that all his stories are fiction and that this is a work of imagination. The public don’t buy it, neither do the police, and dogged investigations begin to produce the reasons why. Ultimately Filippo cannot escape his fate: that of a man with an assumed identity that carries far greater risks than his own.
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Press Reviews
Dominique Manotti Press Reviews
‘Another excellent French crime writer to set alongside Fred Vargas’ Publishing News
‘Dominique Manotti’s narrative control will not surprise those who know her work and it is this that places her high in the hierarchy of French thriller writers today. The art of the novelist, whose cinematic virtuosity and sense of characters increase the ferocity of social criticism, however, should dazzle those who discover Escape’ Le Figaro
‘Manotti has Ellroy’s gift for complex plotting, but she has a grip on the economics, politics and social history which marks her as special … good generic crime fiction, with le flair in abundance’ TLS
‘Gets under the skin in a way that has rarely been so compelling, and certainly never sexier’ Tribune
Author
About Dominique Manotti
Dominique Manotti is a professor of nineteenth-century economic history in Paris. She is the author of a number of novels including Rough Trade (winner of the French Crime Writers’ Association Award), Dead Horsemeat and Lorraine Connection, all published in English by Arcadia Books. Dead Horsemeat was shortlisted for the 2006 Duncan Lawrie International Dagger Award, and Lorraine Connection won the same award in 2008.
Author photo © Catherine Hellie
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