Jean-Patrick Manchette was a French crime novelist credited with reinventing and reinvigorating the genre. He wrote ten short novels in the seventies and early eighties. His stories are violent, existentialist explorations of the human condition and French society. Manchette was politically to the left and his writing reflects this through his analysis of social positions and culture. His books are reminiscent of the nouvelle-vague crime films of Jean-Pierre Melville, employing a similarly cool, existential style on a typically American genre (film noir for Melville and pulp novels for Manchette).