Corrida aux Champs-Elysees
Mit einem historischen Stadtplan, einem Nachgang und Anmerkungen des Übersetzers

This one takes us into the 8th Arrondissement, with Nestor Burma just having finished an assignment as bodyguard to an American film-star, and with his room in a posh hotel on the Champs Elysées paid for by his former client until the end of the month. It's not long before other clients from the film industry seek him out, and from there it's a small step back into the usual dreary routine of life as a noir detective: getting bumps on the head, being kidnapped by gangsters, finding naked blondes in his bed, and so forth. And the corpses piling up around him, needless to say.

Enjoyable, and with plenty of Malet's usual extravagant language, but I didn't feel it worked as well as some of the others in the series: maybe because Hélène is absent on her annual holidays, or because of the way Nestor becomes almost relegated to second place as an assistant of Commissaire Faroux in the official police investigation. ( )

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