Sébastien Japrisot

Made aware at the age of nine that she is the product of a gang raping of her mother, a young woman uses her sexual wiles to lure her husband into a deadly plot against the men whom she believes to be the rapists

One Deadly Summer

Cinq soldats français condamnés à mort en conseil de guerre, aux bras liés dans le dos. Cinq soldats qu'on a jetés dans la neige de Picardie, un soir de janvier 1917, devant la tranchée ennemie, pour qu'on les tue. Toute une nuit et tout un jour, ils ont tenté de survivre. Le plus jeune était un Bleuet, il n'avait pas vingt ans. À l'autre bout de la France, la paix venue, Mathilde veut savoir la vérité sur cette ignominie. Elle a vingt ans elle aussi, elle est plus désarmée que quiconque, mais elle aimait le Bleuet d'un amour à l'épreuve de tout, elle va se battre pour le retrouver, mort ou vivant, dans le labyrinthe où elle l'a perdu. Tout au long de ce qu'on appellera plus tard les années folles, quand le jazz aura couvert le roulement des tambours, ses recherches seront ses fiançailles. Mathilde y sacrifiera ses jours, et malgré le temps, malgré les mensonges, elle ira jusqu'au bout de l'espoir insensé qui la porte. Prix Interallié 1991

Un long dimanche de fiançailles

La 4e de couverture indique : "Quand vous prenez une couchette dans un train de nuit, méfiez-vous des rencontres. Quand on retrouve une femme étranglée dans votre compartiment, méfiez-vous de vos voisins. Quand on supprime un à un tous vos voisins, méfiez-vous tout court. Si vous n'êtes pas vous-même l'assassin, c'est embêtant !"

Compartiment tueurs

Set during and after the First World War, A Very Long Engagement tells the story of a young woman's search for her fiancé, whom she believes might still be alive despite having officially been reported as "killed in the line of duty." Unable to walk since childhood, fearless Mathilde Donnay is undeterred in her quest as she scours the country for information about five wounded French soldiers who were brutally abandoned by their own troops. A Very Long Engagement is a mystery, a love story, and an extraordinary portrait of life in France before and after the War.

A Novel

A Very Long Engagement

A beautiful young woman uses her sexual wiles to avenge a long-ago crime in this noir thriller. "A gripping tale of hatred, revenge, and lust . . . a sinister spellbinder." — Publishers Weekly.

Questa è la storia di un amore. Un amore indomabile, travolgente. E innanzitutto proibito. Quello che lega un ragazzo appena quattordicenne a una suora che di anni ne ha ventisei. La passione che vivono, fino in fondo e senza rimorsi, queste due giovanissime creature viene raccontata con candore e precisione, senza compiacimenti e senza moralismi, da uno scrittore che all'epoca ha solo diciott'anni. In questo romanzo dotato di una grazia quasi prodigiosa (e che inevitabilmente ci fa pensare a un altro romanzo, pressoché perfetto, opera di un adolescente: "Il diavolo in corpo" di Radiguet) percepiamo, tra Denis e suor Clotilde, una tensione erotica palpabile, bruciante: e ogni qualvolta ci sono loro due, soltanto loro due, la pagina è come illuminata. Gli altri – genitori, autorità scolastiche, gerarchie ecclesiastiche – faranno tutto quanto è in loro potere per opporsi a quell'amore. Ma non vi è migliore risposta dell'epigrafe apposta al libro dall'autore stesso: «Credi nel tuo Dio se puoi, ma credi soprattutto nella vita. Se la tua vita dimentica il tuo Dio, tieniti stretta la vita...». Non è un caso che Emmanuel Carrère abbia definito Japrisot «un grande scrittore», «uno dei più originali del suo tempo».

La cattiva strada

L'Ete Meutrier

Goodbye, Friend

During the First World War five French soldiers, accused of a cowardly attempt to evade duty, are bundled into no-man's land and certain death. Five bodies are later recovered, the families are notified that the men died in the line of duty and the whole, distasteful incident appears closed. After the war the fianc-e of one of the men receives a letter which hints at what might have happened. Mathilde Donnay determines to discover the fate of her beloved amid the carnage of battle. A Very Long Engagement turns into an unusual and engrossing thriller as she discovers an increasing number of people trying to put her off the scent. Japrisot's achievement is to have written a novel that is both a suspenseful thriller and one which transforms a single small incident into the epitome of all wartime atrocities. The d-nouement, when it finally happens, is moving and horribly convincing.

"A chilling, baffling psychological fooler ... sparkles with all the juicy terror that can attack the heart and body." — Newsweek Blonde, beautiful, and mysterious Dany Longo is trembling with doubt behind her dark glasses and self-assured veneer. As she races south from Paris in a stolen sports car, she has no idea where she is going or why. Nearsighted behind her shades and timid beneath her bravado, she's oblivious to the sinister maze of sex, deception, and murder that surrounds her. But throughout the journey, Dany finds traces of herself along the way — even in places she has never been. Is she the killer the police are looking for? Has she plunged into someone else's nightmare? Or is she a pawn in a deadly game? The answer lies within four elements: the lady, the car, the glasses, and a gun, each of which holds a clue to Dany's identity and her deadly secret. "A grand master!" — Kirkus Reviews "Japrisot is a magician who gives voice to silence and lays out truth naked on the page." — Le Monde

The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun

Um longo domingo de noivado

Elle est la plus blonde, la plus belle, la plus myope, la plus sentimentale, la plus menteuse, la plus vraie, la plus déroutante, la plus obstinée, la plus inquiétante des héroïnes. La dame dans l'auto n'a jamais vu la mer, elle fuit la police et se répète sans cesse qu'elle n'est pas folle... Pourtant... Ce qui lui arrive est à n'y rien comprendre. On lui a cassé la main, dans une station-service. Juste la main, sans lui prendre l'argent. Comme pour lui dire que partout, où qu'elle soit, on pourra lui faire mal, par petits bouts, jusqu'à la fin, que jamais, quelle que soit la fuite, elle ne pourra être seule, libérée de ce qu'elle sait, du passé et de ce qu'elle cache...

La dame dans l'auto avec des lunettes et un fusil

The False Start

Out of season the Riviera resort is quiet. One day a stranger arrives who forces his way into Mellie's house and rapes her. He pays for this crime with his life. Soon afterwards, Mellie meets an American invesigator who appears to know exactly what happened that night.

Rider on the Rain

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. Sébastien Japrisot takes the reader on an express ride of riveting suspense that races through a Parisian landscape of lust, deception and death. With corpses turning up everywhere, the question becomes not only who is the killer, but who will be the next victim . . .

The Sleeping Car Murders

The Sleeping-car Murders

Pierre Emile Grazziano, nicknamed Grazzi, has a case on his hands. In one of the berths aboard the 10.30 from Marseilles, a beautiful young woman lies brutally murdered. And it is not long before the killer strikes again. With a ramshackle police force at his disposal, Grazzi must track down this serial murderer before more witnessess and civilians meet their end. But this is easier said than done. Set in a Paris packed with criminality, lust and glamour, Japrisot takes us on a whirlwind journey of intrigue, darkness, and blistering suspense.

The 10:30 from Marseille

Car mechanic Fiorimond is irresistibly drawn to beautiful, provocative Elle, a recent arrival in his sleepy Provence village. Their relationship develops quickly, but even as they make plans to marry, Fiorimond doesn't know what to make of his bride-to-be: is she an enigma or simply vacuous? In fact the troubled Elle is on a mission to exact revenge on Fiorimond's family for a crime committed decades earlier, with a plan that will ultimately destroy all their lives, including hers. Set in the 1970s, and available in English again for the first time in many years, this is a true classic of French suspense. It has everything: stylish writing, clever construction, an unforgettable leading lady, and most importantly leaves the reader guessing until the very last page. In the 1980s it was turned into a successful film with Isabelle Adjani.

Une petite station balnéaire en automne. Une jeune femme sage, mariée à un navigateur aérien : Mellie. Un soir de pluie, toute sa vie bascule : le passager d'un autocar qui n'amène plus personne la surprend chez elle, l'attache sur son lit et la violente. Le passager de la pluie a connu à l'écran un succès considérable dans le monde entier. Le film, remarquablement mis en scène par René Clément, est interprété par Marlène Jobert et Charles Bronson.

Sébastien Japrisot

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