The final book in the Marseilles trilogy

“Terrific.”
—The New York Times

Ex-cop, loner, would-be bon vivant, Fabio Montale returns in this stunning conclusion to Jean-Claude Izzo’s Marseilles trilogy. Italian Mafiosi are hunting journalist-activist Babette Bellini, and the body count is growing as they close in on their prey. In desperation, Bellini seeks help from her former lover, Montale. Before he has time to shake off his most recent hangover, Montale is receiving sinister phone calls from men with Italian accents who want him to find Bellini for them. Like a woman he can’t leave, like strong liquor he can’t refuse, Marseilles lures Montale back into its violent embrace.

This is a Marseilles that will break your heart. A modern city and an ancient Mediterranean port, a melting pot of ethnicities and a cauldron boiling with human passions, a place of natural splendor and of sudden violence. In Izzo’s Marseilles new and old varieties of mafia connive and local organized crime insinuates itself into the fabric of legitimate business and politics.

Solea is Izzo’s heartfelt cry against the criminal forces corrupting his beloved city. It is his farewell to Marseilles and to its ideal protagonist, Fabio Montale. It concludes an unforgettable trilogy that epitomizes the aspirations and ideals of the Mediterranean noir movement.

“A talented writer who draws from the deep, dark well of noir.”
—The Washington Post

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

“Just as Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy made Los Angeles their very own, so Mr. Izzo has made Marseilles so much more than just another geographical setting.”
—The Economist

Noir at its finest: compelling, sophisticated literature with a biting social edge.”
—Hirsh Sawhney, The Times Literary Supplement

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.

• Oct 3 2007
  The Nation: "The Marseilles Trilogy may be the most lyrical hard-boiled writing yet."
  
• Jul 20 2007
  VinceKeenan.com: " The Marseilles Trilogy is, simply put, the pinnacle of crime fiction in this decade. Do yourself a favor and read it now."
  
• Jul 17 2007
  Booklist: "The concluding volume of the late Izzo’s Marseilles trilogy remains utterly uncompromising in its allegiance to the classic noir worldview."
  
• Jul 12 2007
  Times Literary Supplement: "Solea engages with the relationship between crime and social inequality, but its core dilemmas are of a more existential nature...compelling, sophisticated literature with a biting social edge."
  
• Jul 6 2007
  The Village Voice: "With Solea, the third and final volume of his groundbreaking "Marseilles Trilogy," out this month in English, Jean-Claude Izzo's dark, revelatory portrait of the city of his birth is complete."
  
• May 18 2007
  Kirkus Review: "The final installment of Izzo's Marseilles trilogy plunges ex-cop Fabio Montale into an even deeper well of corruption than the first two."