Total chaos (novel)
Encyclopedia
Total Chaos is the first novel of French author Jean-Claude Izzo
's Marseilles Trilogy. It is considered a modern classic of the Mediterranean noir
style.
during summer. Fabio Montale, a suburban-Marseille cop, sees his two closest childhood friends die one-by-one in violent circumstances. One was killed without anyone knowing why, the other was killed immediately after assassinating one of the leaders of the local underworld. Montale tries to understand what happened and gradually discovers a tangle of interests and power struggles within the Marseilles underworld and police.
Jean-Claude Izzo
Jean-Claude Izzo was a French poet, playwright, screenwriter, and novelist who achieved sudden fame in the mid-1990s with the publication of his three neo-noir crime novels Total Chaos, Chourmo, and Solea , featuring as protagonist ex-cop Fabio Montale, and set in the author's native city of...
's Marseilles Trilogy. It is considered a modern classic of the Mediterranean noir
Mediterranean noir
Mediterranean Noir refers to a literary style that employs elements of noir and hardboiled crime fiction in a Mediterranean setting. Sex, crime, and physical violence often figure prominently in Mediterranean Noir narratives...
style.
Synopsis
The story takes place in MarseilleMarseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
during summer. Fabio Montale, a suburban-Marseille cop, sees his two closest childhood friends die one-by-one in violent circumstances. One was killed without anyone knowing why, the other was killed immediately after assassinating one of the leaders of the local underworld. Montale tries to understand what happened and gradually discovers a tangle of interests and power struggles within the Marseilles underworld and police.