Jean-Claude Izzo (All press)
- Sep 24 2018
“...among the best noir writing about anywhere in any language.”
— CrimeReads - Jul 31 2015
Today’s Zaman: “This evocative and passionate collection of essays from the French crime writer is a paean to the life, cities and food of the Mediterranean.” - Jun 11 2015
Murder in the Afternoon: "Izzo also draws a picture of the xenophobic nationalism and racism taking over working-class votes in neighborhoods destroyed by a declining harbor industry and poverty-fueled organized crime." - Jul 21 2014
The Telegraph: Books about France: holiday reading guide - Jul 13 2014
Yahoo Travel: Books for Bastille Day - Apr 4 2014
Mrs. Peabody Investigates: World Noir Round-Up - Mar 31 2014
Bloody Goodreads: "Izzo writes beautifully, and his main guy, Fabio Montale, is a fabulous creation, a recognisably tragic figure who loves women and honour and booze and food and is doomed to destroy himself with his appetite for life." - Jul 12 2013
The Barnes & Noble Review: "By its end Chourmo acheives a level of pity and horror that recalls Greek tragedy." - Jul 11 2013
The Barnes & Noble Review: "Total Chaos is a dark and violent book, yet many of its pages are full of sunshine and celebrate the fundamental pleasures of life." - May 26 2013
Woody Haut's Blog: "These are all lyrical pieces that allow Izzo to speak from the heart about the state of his beloved city..." - May 10 2013
The Guardian: "This evocative new collection of essays...is a paean to the life, cities and food of the Mediterranean." - Apr 12 2013
The Paris Review: "[Izzo] distill[s] a part of the world into just a few pages." - Apr 3 2013
The Complete Review: "A fine little love-letter to Marseilles and the Mediterranean region around it." - Mar 11 2013
Three Guys One Book: "The text beats." - Oct 1 2008
Booklist: "a likely hit not just with fans of noir (including Izzo’s own Marseilles trilogy) but also with devotees of Charles Bukowski, Hubert Selby Jr., and other great modern tragedians." - Oct 1 2008
Mostly Fiction: "A Sun for the Dying is Izzo’s finest novel, bitter, bleak and perfect, and Izzo fans will not be disappointed." - Sep 12 2008
Daily Telegraph: "A psychologically intense, evocative indictment of social cruelty." - Sep 8 2008
Shelf Awareness: "why was I sobbing as I closed this book? Because Izzo's vision of life, though unspeakably sad, rings boldly honest." - Jul 1 2008
Kirkus Reviews: "Difficult but rewarding reading that offers an unflinching look at a social problem" - Jun 19 2008
The Guardian: Music, life, literature, and Jean-Claude Izzo...from the Guardian Unlimited Blog - Apr 30 2008
Publishers Weekly: "Izzo (1945–2000) returns to Marseille (setting of Total Chaos and other of his books) with a bleak, affecting tale about a man on the skids, despairing of love's ability to heal...Izzo's last novel proves riveting and grim." - Dec 2 2007
Boston Globe: "A tale of the three men's lives and loves...Izzo's novel is something of a palimpsest. The travels of the Romans, and of the Greeks before them, have left their traces over which the lives of his characters are now etched." - Oct 3 2007
The Nation: "The Marseilles Trilogy may be the most lyrical hard-boiled writing yet." - Oct 1 2007
Guardian Unlimited: "Music, it turns out, is vital to Izzo's unusual take on France's troubled ethnic divisions. Izzo's prose probes the vicious cycle of immigration, unemployment, poverty, crime and racism that afflict contemporary France." - 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." - Jun 26 2007
Kirkus Reviews: "The author masterfully depicts his native Marseilles’ sensuous diversity, from down-at-the-heels cafés to the increasingly ritzy and snobbish seaside." - 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." - May 4 2007
Publishers Weekly: "Babette's sophisticated analysis of organized crime's effect on the working classes, plus Izzo's unsparing treatment of his cynical hero, elevate this far above most Mafia-themed fiction." - Feb 28 2007
Port Folio Weekly: "Jean-Claude Izzo's France, in his acclaimed Marseilles Trilogy, lies so far off the tourist track you might think you're in the Bronx or Detroit." - 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 28 2006
The Quarterly Conversation: "Izzo takes a convention of noir--the lost soul who finds himself in vengeance--and packs it with enough realism to make it utterly lifelike." - 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." - Jul 28 2006
Publishers Weekly: "Like the best American practitioners in the genre, Izzo refrains from any sugarcoating of the city he depicts or the broken and imperfect men and women who people it." - Jul 5 2006
Kirkus (starred review): "Izzo provides another guided tour of the underbelly of Marseilles (so extensive that it seems to swallow the whole city) that's bracing in its wit and velocity." - Mar 8 2006
Santa Cruz Sentinel: "Violence is a major theme in Jean-Claude Izzo's "Total Chaos," a novel that does a lot to explain the riots that shut down Paris last fall, [...] a nice introduction to the angst of modern life in France." - Dec 28 2005
The Chicago Tribune: "Izzo's book is full of fascinating characters, tersely brought to life in a prose style that is (thanks to Howard Curtis' shrewd translation) traditionally dark and completely original." - Dec 8 2005
Time Out, New York: "Like the best noir writers—and make no mistake, he is among the best—Izzo not only has a keen eye for detail [...] but also digs deep into what makes men weep." - Nov 26 2005
Globe and Mail: "Izzo's Marseilles is ravishing. Every street, cafe and house has its own character." - Nov 9 2005
Washington Post: "Rich, ambitious, and passionate." - Oct 15 2005
Kirkus Reviews (starred review): " Izzo’s Marseilles is crowded with prostitutes, enforcers, agitators and hit men, all of them bent on going independent."