Nada - Jean-Patrick Manchette

Nada by Jean-Patrick Manchette, translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith, intro by Lucy Sante / ISBN 9781681373171 / 179-page paperback published by NYRB Classics *** This tour de force political thriller, told in Manchette's signature noir style, follows a group of far left extremists in the throes of post-1968 disillusionment. The thrill of 1968 is long over, and the heavy fog of the 1970s has settled in. In Paris, however, the Nada gang—or groupuscule—still retains a militant attachment to its revolutionary dreams. Bringing together an anarchist orphaned by the Spanish Civil War, a Communist veteran of the French resistance, a frustrated high-school teacher of philosophy, a timid office worker, a terminal alcoholic, and one uncompromising young woman with a house in the country, Nada sets out to kidnap the American ambassador and issue a call to arms. What could possibly go wrong? Jean-Patrick Manchette (1942-1995) was a genre-redefining French crime novelist, screenwriter, critic, a