Streets of fire and blood in France

Paris, or London, cannot be understood without the help of a road map. It would take a map to follow, year after year, century after century, the barricades, riots and street brawls. Just as a street guide is essential to follow the adventures of Nestor Burma, the private detective invented by Léo Malet. Communist, indeed anarchist, surrealist, when instead he is rational, right-thinking rival Georges Simenon’s Maigret. “Life sucked. Confirmation came daily. I wish I was ten years old. I don’t know why but I wish I was ten. An immense desire to be ten years old. Life sucked, it was an ignoble and frightening machine”, says the protagonist in the opening chapter of the novel of the same name, before taking up the “artillery” (from The Black Trilogy: the Malets are systematically published by Fazi, like the Simenons I am from Adelphi).