Description: "When his oldest and best friend is murdered, Fabio Montale turns his back on a police force marred by corruption and takes the fight against the local mafia into his own hands."--Publishers description.
Brief description: Jean-Claude Izzo was born in Marseilles in 1945. Best known for the Marseilles trilogy (Total Chaos, Chourmo, Solea), Izzo is also the author of The Lost Sailors, and A Sun for the Dying. Izzo is widely credited with being the founder of the modern Mediterranean noir movement. He died in 2000 at the age of fifty-five.
Review Quotes: Praise for Total Chaos
"Izzo's ability to describe Marseilles and to make his readers feel the multiracial reality of that city so directly and authentically is fascinating."--Andrea Camilleri, author of the bestselling Inspector Montalbano series "Izzo's Marseilles is ravishing. Every street, cafe and house has it's own character."
--The Globe and Mail "Like the best noir writers--and make no mistake, he is among the best--Izzo not only has a keen eye for detail . . . but also digs deep into what makes men weep."
--Time Out New York "Just as Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy made Los Angeles their very own, so Mr. Izzo has made Marseilles so much more than just another geographical setting."
--The Economist "The Marseilles trilogy may be the most lyrical hard-boiled writing yet."
--The Nation "Reading Izzo's novels, you're bound to cry sooner or later."
--Le Monde "Rich, ambitious, and passionate."
--Washington Post "Izzo provides another guided tour of the underbelly of Marseilles (so extensive that it seems to swallow the whole city) that's bracing in its wit and velocity."
--Kirkus (Starred review)
"One of the masterpieces of modern noir." --Michael Dirda, The Washington Post