Total Chaos: Marseilles Trilogy, Book One

by Jean-Claude Izzo

Book Overview

In Jean-Claude Izzo's "Mediterranean noir" mysteries, the city of Marseilles is explosive, breathtakingly beautiful, and deadly. This first book in the Marseilles trilogy introduces readers to Fabio Montale, a disenchanted cop who turns his back on a police force marred by corruption and racism and, in the name of friendship, takes the fight against the mafia into his own hands.

Ugo, Manu, and Fabio grew up together on the mean streets of Marseilles...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1609451260
• ISBN13: 9781609451264
• Release Date: May 2013
• Publisher: Europa Editions
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 8.2"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Marseilles Noir

Jean-Claude Izzo's Spartan writing hits the perfect pitch in this classic hardboiled detective story. The first volume of the Marseilles Trilogy, "Total Chaos" introduces Fabio Montale, a disillusioned cop attempting to resolve the murders of his boyhood chums, Ugo and Manu. By a quirk of fate Fabio became a cop while his pals followed a path of crime that led to their deaths. Along the way the reader gets an account of these sons of Italian immigrants growing up on the hard streets of Marseilles's seedier neighborhoods where they knew "their bodies and clothes smelled of mildew ... But they didn't give a damn. They loved life. They were good looking. And they knew how to fight." But that was the past. Not only are Ugo and Manu gone, but Fabio must face a lost love, Lole, and investigate the brutal rape and murder of Leila, the daughter of a good friend. Feeling like an exile, Fabio haunts the city -- "In which dawn is merely an illusion that the world is beautiful." -- eating, drinking, having his way with beautiful women, spurning deep relationships, and occasionally escaping for some fishing in the Mediterranean. Through Fabio's eyes, Izzo paints a sentimental portrait of the city in all its beauty and brutality. His portrayal of Marseilles's seaport, neighborhoods, food, music, politics, and racial tensions raise this novel above the classic hardboiled crime story.

A Mediterranean city is really my culture

Zinedine Zidane Jean-Claude Izzo, like French footballer Zidane, is a native of Marseilles. He was born in Marseille in 1945. Because he was the son of Spanish and Italian immigrants, Izzo was streamed into vocational school where he trained to be a lathe operator. After serving in the military he returned to Marseilles where he eventually turned to writing. His books have been remarkably successful in France and have been the subject of films and t.v. shows. He died, at age 54, in Marseilles. "Total Chaos" is the first volume in the aptly-named "Marseilles Trilogy". The second, Chourmo, and third, Solea (Marseilles Trilogy)complete the triloy. There are two primary characters in Total Chaos. The first is Fabio Montale. Montale is a cop. The child of immigrants, Montale had a hard life growing up on Marseilles' mean streets. He ran with a "bad-crowd" a crowd that included the two friends. Manu and Ugu, with whom he shared a bond cemented by petty thefts and days spent in an around the harbor. There is also the girl, Lole, who they all loved in one way or the other. Montale escaped his childhood, joined the army and ended up a cop. The others never left escaped the life they were born into. That life results in Manu and Ugu both being killed. Montale spends the rest of the book seeking answers to the question of who killed Manu and Ugu and why. He is a cop and that is what he does. Montale knows there is no justice in the criminal justice system. He knows that life is nasty brutish and short. He knows that, even as intimate as his feelings for his city are that generations of immigrants to Marseilles from around the world (particularly now from the Middle East) are treated in much the same way as the children of Sicilian immigrants used to be treated. Montale (and Izzo of course) is both cynical and fatalistic but, nevertheless, he plods on. The other primary character is Marseilles itself. I think it fair to say that Izzo loved his native place. Izzo's love for Marseilles imbues Total Chaos almost to the point of consuming it. However, Izzo's feeling for his city does not preclude his viewing his love through rose-colored glasses. Izzo's love for Marseilles is not the puppy love that a teenager has for his first real girl friend. No, Izzo's feelings are more those of someone who has lasted through a long marriage, who has hurt and been hurt. He sees the flaws and the pain but still can see the beauty and the passion. I very much enjoyed "Total Chaos". This is noir, Marseilles style. While Izzo is a bit more expansive in terms of setting out in print the thoughts and feelings of his characters than a Georges Simenon for example, he does not get excessively florid. He is terser than most and that is to his credit. Izzo also provides some nice atmospherics. His references to both food (its preparation and its consumption) and to music (Montale's taste in jazz and music in general s both provocative and scene-setting) a

Superb trilogy

Total Chaos is the first installment of the Marseilles Trilogy and is the best. Izzo's storytelling of immigration's impact to Marseilles is just spot on. Hats off to Howard Curtis for his flawless translation evident in the fluidity of all three books. Makes you wish Izzo were still alive to write more of these.

Gritty noir with a sentimental twist

You want gritty noir with a sentimental twist? You've got it! This is the first volume in a masterful trilogy by French author Jean-Claude Izzo (unfortunately deceased). Taking place in and around Marseilles this story involves a retired cop, French mafia, North African immigrants and more. The main character, the retired cop Fabio Montale himself the son of Italian immigrants, has to deal with the death of a friend as well as unresolved childhood issues. While doing this he introduces us to Marseilles and we can almost smell the sea, the "pistou" soup and the mandatory pastis apéritif. The feelings are strong, the story is hard and people are hurt. If you like this book keep an eye out for volumes 2 and 3 of the trilogy which have now been published in English. The French title: "Total Khéops" comes from a Marseilles rap group called IAM. Highly recommended!

Marseille's Mean Streets

This first in Izzo's popular Marseille Trilogy (followed by "Chourmo" and "Solea", which are both scheduled to appear in translation in 2007) is an unflinching portrait of France's southern port, dressed up in the trappings of a crime story. Make no mistake, it is a crime story, but despite the gritty local color and bloody action, the story is suffused with a sense of ennui, isolation, and loss -- not unlike the films of Jean-Pierre Melville. The protagonist is Fabio Montale, a disillusioned policeman whose two oldest friends, Manu and Ugo, are killed within days of each other. Twenty years earlier they were growing up together in a rough neighborhood, thick as thieves, chasing girls, and headed for a steady life of crime. But Montale didn't see in a future in it and opted out, first serving overseas in the Army, and then joining the police force. Now, he's left to pick up the pieces after Manu is killed by one of the various mafias vying for control of the city's vice, and Ugo returns from Paris only to be killed by the police in what looks to be a set-up. A subplot of almost equal importance involves the disappearance of Leila, a beautiful, bright young Arab that Montale has a chaste love for. She's only one of the many, many beautiful women that seem to hover around Montale in various forms (friend, lover, mother, hooker). In this regard, the story is a cliche, the tough loner cop who can never allow himself to truly love. In any event, the two various story strands intertwine, but the plot is so totally convoluted as to defy explanation. This is something I've found with a good deal of crime novels from outside the U.S. and U.K., they tend to either very stripped down and simple, or totally tangled and labyrinthine. However, in this case, the actual plot is of much less importance than the tone and the setting. Like his protagonist, the author was born and raised in the seedy city of Marseille, and watched it turn from a Southern European melting pot to a post-colonial melting pot of 1.5 million people. Like his protagonist, he had a front-row seat (as a journalist, not a cop) to the major social and economic shifts of the last several decades, and the xenophobia they have engendered. Here, he takes the reader deep into the world of Italian and Sicilian mafia, Arab ghettos, corrupt cops, pimps and prostitutes of all persuasions, and a very Gallic sense of disenchantment and fatalism. It's a complicated portrait, loving and nostalgic, yet sad and angry. In that sense, the book works much better as a social portrait of a city than it does as a crime story. I'd really recommend it much more to those with an interest in Southern France or who might be visiting Marseille, than I would to crime buffs. It would also, along with the film Hate, be useful for those seeking to understand the recent Paris riots. Note: The novel was made into a film in France under its original title, "Total Kheops", but it is not available in the U.S. There was also