Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine
WORK NOTES: trans by Donald Wilson
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY: Swiss
Swiss-Canadian * https://www.bitterlemonpress.com/blogs/authors/quentin-mouron *
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born 1989, in Lausanne, Switzerland.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Novelist.
AWARDS:Prix Alpes-Jura, 2011, for Au point d’effusion des égouts.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Swiss-Canadian poet and novelist Quentin Mouron won the prestigious Prix Alpes-Jura—awarded to an author writing in French from the Alpine or Jura regions of France and Switzerland–in 2011 for his debut novel Au point d’effusion des égouts. His first novel to appear in English translation, however, was his fifth: Trois gouttes de sang et un nuage de coke: roman, translated by W. Donald Wilson and published under the title Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine.
Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine has an American location. It tells the story of a Massachusetts sheriff named Paul McCarthy who has to find the murderer of an old fixture in the town—retiree Jimmy Henderson, Outwardly it appears that Henderson had been on the trail of the former boyfriend of his daughter, who had sexually abused Henderson’s granddaughter. Whoever it was that killed Henderson, they left a severely mutilated corpse in his old Ford truck. As McCarthy ponders the seeming simplicity of the case, however, he is suddenly—and somewhat unwillingly—joined by a colleague. “Enter a cocaine-imbibing sociopathic and bewilderingly successful detective named Franck,” wrote Russell James in the online Crime Time, “to plunge into the case uninvited.”
For reviewers, it is the introduction of nihilistic Franck that makes Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine a truly unique crime story. “Franck is a deeply complex and at times unfathomably motivated character who, for me, resembles American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman,” stated a Turnaround website reviewer. “As a protagonist he makes this book utterly compelling, playful and quite, quite frightening–he frequently quotes philosophy or literature … and has a penchant for puns, mind games, metafictional reflection and the darkest of dark humour.” “Author Quentin Mouron has the ability to create a distinct character in a couple of sentences,” enthused Howard Jackson on the Crime Chronicles website. “He mixes dilettantes, aesthetes, celebrities, down to earth policemen and low life criminals in a tale that surprises and pretends to wander. Franck has contempt for everyone.” “Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine is Quentin Mouron’s English-language debut, and what a debut it is,” enthused Sam Millar in the New York Journal of Books. “Disturbingly violent, yet never gratuitous, it is perfectly balanced with wondrous prose and original one-liners. Mouron has created a truly memorable character in Franck, who is anything but the archetypical PI. No, he is something special. Very special indeed…. If he’s not in the next Mouron novel, it would be a crime.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, April 24, 2017, review of Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine, p. 69.
ONLINE
Crime Chronicles, http://www.crimechronicles.co.uk/ (January 17, 2018), Howard Jackson, review of Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine.
Crime Time, http://www.crimetime.co.uk/ (May 24, 2017), Russell James, review of Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine.
New York Journal of Books, https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/ (January 17, 2018), Sam Millar, review of Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine.
Quentin Mouron Website, http://www.quentinmouron.com (January 17, 2018), author profile.
Turnaround, https://theturnaroundblog.com/ (June 15, 2017), review of Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine.
Quentin Mouron is a poet and a novelist. He was born in Lausanne in 1989 and is Swiss and Canadian. In 2011 he won the prix Alpes-Jura for his novel Au point d’effusion des égouts . He has written three other highly acclaimed novels before Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine.
In French.
Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine
264.17 (Apr. 24, 2017): p69.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine
Quentin Mouron, trans, from the French by W. Donald Wilson. Bitter Lemon, $14.95 trade paper (232p) ISBN 978-1-908524-83-6
Mouron makes his English-language debut with a knife-edged noir set in Watertown, Mass., which combines spare prose with a compelling murder mystery plot. Sheriff Paul McCarthy must deal with an unusual homicide; his decades-long casual acquaintance, Jimmy Henderson, has had his throat cut while sitting in his pickup truck on a quiet st reet one night. Beforehand, the killer slashed Henderson's eyes, cut out his tongue, and gashed his cheeks. Nothing was stolen, and there seems to be no motive for the killing and the subsequent butchery. There is, however, an obvious suspect--drug dealer Alexander Marshall, a local ne'er-do-well with a record for attempted homicide, who shacked up with Henderson's daughter, Laura, and sexually abused her child. But McCarthy is unwilling to settle for an easy answer to the case. Cornell Woolrich readers will recognize Mouron's portrayals of "simple folk, disturbed by life," who "commit only rational murders, justified by drunkenness or necessity and tempered by tears and regrets." (June)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine." Publishers Weekly, 24 Apr. 2017, p. 69. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A491250807/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=eda1776b. Accessed 9 Dec. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A491250807
Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine
Image of Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine
Author(s):
Quentin Mouron
Release Date:
June 13, 2017
Publisher/Imprint:
Bitter Lemon Press
Pages:
232
Buy on Amazon
Reviewed by:
Sam Millar
“Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine is Quentin Mouron’s English-language debut, and what a debut it is.”
Night has fallen quietly on Watertown, Massachusetts, and Jimmy Henderson, a 70-year-old retiree, is sitting in his black Ford pickup on the corner of Parker and Mount Auburn, relishing his last slice of pizza from the box. Apart from the usual garbage strewn inside the pickup, nothing is remarkable with the exception of a “hunting” gun—a Winchester 12 pump-action shotgun—leaning conspicuously against the dash.
From his rearview mirror, Jimmy is keeping his eyes firmly focused on the one-time First Baptist Church building, now converted into mid-range apartments that are much coveted by neighborhood families.
After some time slips by, Jimmy decides he has seen enough for tonight, flicks on the vehicle’s headlights, and is about to drive off when he notices the figure of a man walking toward Mount Auburn from the end of Parker Street. Jimmy figures he isn’t the sort of man you expect to come across in Watertown: too impeccably dressed. Jimmy figures him for about thirtyish, good-looking with thick black hair. As the man comes closer, a glint of recognition flickers in Jimmy’s eyes. Or is that fear?
“Good evening,” stammers Jimmy. The man gives a slight bow. And much more.
Within a deadly flash of life, Jimmy has been mutilated, eyes slashed, cheeks gashed up to the ears, and tongue sliced off, all in a caustic air of unanticipated irony: the last slice of pizza consumed minutes ago really would turn out to be Jimmy’s last.
The town’s sheriff, Paul McCarthy, soon takes charge of the murder investigation. McCarthy had known Jimmy for over 30 years as a neighbor, and is shocked by the ferociousness of the slaughter.
Puzzlingly, an initial search of the pickup reveals that nothing seems to have been stolen:
“Why? For pity’s sake, why? The sheriff is wondering about the wallet found in old Jim’s jacket, his hunting rifle and ammunition, the truck with the keys in the ignition. Why hadn’t the killer taken anything? It can’t have been he was in a hurry or that he panicked, as he stayed around long enough to mutilate the corpse. No, if he didn’t steal anything it was because he didn’t need to, because it didn’t interest him. Well then, wonders McCarthy, what does interest you, you sonofabitch?”
So robbery is ruled out—for now, at least. However, despite no motive clearly emerging, there is a suspect: Alexander Marshall, a local drug dealer and thug with a penchant for violence against women, who also just happens to have attempted murder on his curriculum vitae of crimes.
At one time, Marshall lived with Henderson’s daughter, Laura. While living in the house, he sexually abused Laura’s young daughter. Talk on the street was that Jimmy was gunning for Marshall, but had Marshall turned the tables and got in first? Possibly and very likely, thinks McCarthy who could easily set up the pervert for what he did to the child. However, that is not McCarthy’s modus operandi, preferring the book of law to take its course for justice.
With old-fashion but relentless police work, McCarty is soon picking up little breadcrumbs of clues. However, worryingly for him, the more clues he finds, the darker and bloodier the case and crumbs start to become.
Into this murderous mix of a nightmare, comes the mysterious enigmatic young private investigator Franck, allegedly visiting from New York.
McCarthy’s a church-going, much-loved family man with wife and kids. He desperately tries walking a precarious tightrope of keeping a boundary between the sordidness of his investigations and his private life. He is also a man trying to keep faith in human nature and the order that should prevail in the world.
But Franck is a different sort of breed, a man always rushing to the bathroom for another line of coke, reveling in the darker workings of the case. And what is his real reason for being in Watertown? When the two men finally meet the entire existence of the sheriff as a righteous family man—and probably as a police officer—will be turned on its head, as he begins to question his very sanity.
Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine is Quentin Mouron’s English-language debut, and what a debut it is. Disturbingly violent, yet never gratuitous, it is perfectly balanced with wondrous prose and original one-liners. Mouron has created a truly memorable character in Franck, who is anything but the archetypical PI. No, he is something special. Very special indeed. Think Anton Chigurh, Cormack McCarthy’s frightening psychopathic killer from No Country for Old Men, but with dark, sinister humor added to his psyche. If he’s not in the next Mouron novel, it would be a crime.
Sam Millar is the author of The Dark Place. His most recent novel is On the Brinks.
Confessions of a Reluctant Crime Reader no.6: Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine
I have a confession to make… as excited as I was for this book I wasn’t sure if it could live up to its strapline: ‘written with the pace and controlled violence of the very best Tarantino film.’ Well guess what? I was wrong!
9781908524836
Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine really is something else. The writing is terse and witty, the pacing immaculate and the books’ atmosphere extraordinary. The plot purports to be based around the murder (and the solving of the murder) of Jim Henderson, who is found dead and mutilated in his pick-up truck. But the real heart of narrative is its descent into the minds of Paul McCarthy, local sheriff and a family man, and Franck, a private detective from New York.
Franck is a deeply complex and at times unfathomably motivated character who, for me, resembles American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman. As a protagonist he makes this book utterly compelling, playful and quite, quite frightening – he frequently quotes philosophy or literature (mostly Joséphin Péladan) and has a penchant for puns, mind games, metafictional reflection and the darkest of dark humour.
Mankind may be ugly, and pitiful, but there’s no denying that there’s something comical about it!
He is an unusual hero, even for the crime genre, but more often than not I found myself more interested in what Franck might do next than who the murderer was – he is the undoubted star of the novel.
However I do have a soft spot too for Sheriff McCarthy, the more traditional (in all senses) lawman. Whilst not a sensational character, like Franck, he is surprisingly profound at times; he takes both his job and his family life seriously but struggles to reconcile them and there’s real torment in his thoughts and actions:
He is especially apprehensive of these silent hours when the abysses of insanity and alcoholism begin to open up yet again beneath his feet. They devoured his parents. He knows they threaten him as well. My life, he sometimes tells himself, is basically a struggle against my own leaning toward disorder, my own heredity. The drug dealing, the organized crime, are secondary. The neatly trimmed hedge, the mailbox, and the shiny floor are a valid defense, but there are times when this approach no longer seems adequate.
Quentin Mouron is a writer who is assiduously self-aware. As well as Franck’s reading habits and artistic sensibilities, Mouron treats the reader to a healthy smattering of Dostoevsky, Georg Lukács, Maurice Blanchot and Witold Grombrowicz. His own evident knowledge of crime literature enables him to expertly manipulate the genre conventions, to great effect.
Franck is as cognisant as his author and delights in shocking whatever company he finds himself in with his opinions and knowledge. During a dinner party discussion about the murder, he scandalises his new acquaintance by asking:
“It’s wrong to kill your neighbor?”
“Do you find that ridiculous?”
“No, I find it charming. It’s just that I think there are certain people you can kill.”
Now, I obviously can’t talk about the ending – although I really want to! – but, just when you think things have wrapped up rather nicely, it comes clanging down upon you and is every bit as trippy and hilarious as it is mind-blowing. All I can say (except what I just said) is that, after that exit, I really hope Franck returns for a sequel…
Post by Rachel
Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine by Quentin Mouron is published today by Bitter Lemon (9781908524836, p/b, 206pp, £8.99)
hree Drops Of Blood And A Cloud Of Cocaine By Quentin Mouron (trans W Donald Wilson)
by Russell James
May 24, 2017
Why would a vicious, nihilistic and crooked detective hang around to investigate the apparently motiveless though sadistic murder of a petty criminal? Why would the murderer, having slit his victim’s throat, switch to a different scalpel-like blade to slice the man’s eyeballs and remove his tongue? Enter a cocaine-imbibing sociopathic and bewilderingly successful detective named Franck to plunge into the case uninvited, partly for the hell of it and partly to outrage and alarm the local citizens.
For the most part this is a fast-paced and amusing read. It does include too many pensive pages on the psychology of demonic crime (yes, it was originally written in French) but it whips along at a giddy rate until it crashed into a suitably cocaine-fuelled denouement in which the author seems as stoned as his protagonist, having forgotten that despite all the metafictional musing and French ratiocination a detective’s only object, psychologically or physically, is to match the right murder to the right killer. That’s what Mouron’s weary cop McCarthy says. And that’s what crime readers want.
Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine
Quentin Mouron (translated from the French by W Donald Wilson)
Bitter Lemon paperback, £8.99, 978-1-908524-83-6
Russell James
Quentin Mouron: Three Drops Of Blood And A Cloud Of Cocaine.
Price: £8.99 Pages: 228 ISBN: 9781908524836
Bitter Lemon Press
Franck is a detective and a half glass empty man. This hedonistic and jaded jeremiad wants a world where people are interesting, authentic, beautiful and original, something that will make his next precious breath worthwhile. Inevitably, the human race disappoints him. Franck being human needs his compensations. The cloud of cocaine referred to in the book title is mainly around Franck. This latest thriller from Bitter Lemon Press is top drawer. The book is original and formidable. Not everything in Three Drops Of Blood And A Cloud Of Cocaine is flawless. Although it contains a fabulous surprise the scene in the art gallery is over-extended. The final seduction between the responsible puritan and amoral pleasure seeker feels glib and unconvincing. The rest of the book, though, is fabulous. Fans of the horror genre expect at least two spine tingles from a story or film. Crime fiction should provide two mouth-dropping plot twists. Three Drops Of Blood And A Cloud Of Cocaine has them.
Ambitious crime fiction tends to rely on the thriller format when it tilts towards literary appeal. Three Drops Of Blood And A Cloud Of Cocaine, though, is centred on the mysterious murder of old Jimmy Henderson. The book has an Ed McBain type puzzle. To dazzle with invention and style in this format is no small achievement. The clues that confuse represent both mundane ambition and inhibited perversity. The plot resists familiar mechanisms, and the prose has plenty of style. The translation by W. Donald Wilson is superb. The book is a pleasure to read. The humour is dark and essential to the confusion but is not overdone. Gangster Le Carré mixes worlds and deserves to be bewildered.
Franck meets a novelist called James Ellsor. Crime fans will recognise the sly reference to a famous but overbearing author.
Franck is a fabulous character. His self-centred hedonism he pursues with the purist dedication of a Zen Buddhist. It is tempting to think of the book as a mix of dark Patricia Highsmith and a twisted Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance. Franck is as memorable as anti-heroes Tom Ripley and Anton Chigurh. Not that Three Drops Of Blood And A Cloud Of Cocaine is a one-man show. Like Cormack McCarthy, author Quentin Mouron has the ability to create a distinct character in a couple of sentences. He mixes dilettantes, aesthetes, celebrities, down to earth policemen and low life criminals in a tale that surprises and pretends to wander. Franck has contempt for everyone. He also has a temper but then the man does have standards. Author Mouron is also good about things. He persuades us that the world we inhabit is inherited rather than invented. The opening description of the pick-up truck of victim Jimmy Henderson mixes precise detail and is first class.
By Howard Jackson.