Book two in the Marseilles trilogy

"Haunting."
—The New Yorker

"In Marseilles, you weren’t just from one neighborhood, one project. You were chourmo. In the same galley, rowing! Trying to get out. Together.”

Fabio Montale has left a police force marred by corruption, racism and greed to follow the placid rhythms of his native town: the sea, fishing, and the local bar. But getting out is not going to be so easy. When his cousin’s son goes missing, Montale is dragged back into the mean streets of a violent, crime-infested Marseilles. To discover the truth about the boy’s disappearance, he infiltrates a dangerous underworld of mobsters, religious fanatics, crooked cops and ordinary people driven to extremes by desperation.

This second novel in Izzo’s acclaimed Marseilles trilogy is a touching tribute to the author’s beloved city, in all its color and complexity. Fabio Montale is an unwitting hero in this city of melancholy beauty.

“When the urge for escapist reading simply cannot be denied, there are always foreign authors like Jean-Claude Izzo.”
—The New York Times

“Rich, ambitious, and passionate.”
—Washington Post

“A sensationally readable mystery . . . Full of fascinating characters.”
—The Chicago Tribune

“Distinctive and fascinating.”
—Kirkus (starred review)

Jean-Claude Izzo
Jean-Claude Izzo was born in Marseilles, France, in 1945. Best known for the Marseilles trilogy (Total Chaos, Chourmo, Solea), Izzo is also the author of The Lost Sailors, A Sun for the Dying, Garlic, Mint, & Sweet Basil, and one collection of short stories, Living Tires. He died in 2000 at the age of fifty-five.

• Jul 12 2013
  The Barnes & Noble Review: "By its end Chourmo acheives a level of pity and horror that recalls Greek tragedy."
  
• Oct 17 2006
  The Houston Chronicle: "Montale's search, first for the boy, then for the perpetrators of a string of related killings that explode around him ... forms the book's thin and densely snarled thread of a plot, with its prescient Islamic terrorist angle."
  
• Oct 12 2006
  The New Yorker: "But what makes his work haunting is his extraordinary ability to convey the tastes and smells of Marseilles, and the way memory and obligation dog every step his hero takes."
  
• Oct 5 2006
  Time Out New York: "Izzo, who died in 2000, presents noir in full color, creating a vivid psychogeography of Marseilles�the beauty, the history, the hopelessness..."
  
• Sep 22 2006
  The Complete Review: "Chourmo is another love-letter to Marseilles, warts and all (emphasis on the warts), and a solid atmospheric thriller."
  
• Aug 24 2006
  Booklist: "This hard-hitting series captures all the world-weariness of the contemporary European crime novel, but Izzo mixes it with a hero who is as virile as he is burned out."