'The French master of noir' Observer It felt like the slipknot on a rope round my chest was being tightened without pityTrouble is the last thing Albert needs. Travelling back to his childhood home on Christmas Eve to mourn his mother's death, he finds the loneliness and nostalgia of his Parisian quartier unbearable... Until, that evening, he encounters a beautiful, seemingly innocent woman at a brasserie, and his spirits are lifted. Still, something about the woman disturbs him. Where is the father of her child? And what are those two red stains on her sleeve? When she invites him back to her apartment, Albert thinks he's in luck. But a monstrous scene awaits them, and he finds himself lured into the darkness against his better judgment. Unravelling like a paranoid nightmare, Bird in a Cage melds existentialist drama with thrilling noir to tell the story of a man trapped in a prison of his own making. 'Disturbing from the outset with strong echoes of Dard's hero Simenon' Sunday Times Crime Club, star pick'Exceedingly clever... you can only squirm more enjoyably into your seat as you read on' Bookbag, 5 stars 'If you're a fan of Film Noir, you'll love Bird in a Cage...if all the novels in the Vertigo series are this good, I predict I'll be needing more bookshelves.' Randall Writes The Wicked Go to Hell, Crush and The Executioner Weeps are forthcoming from Pushkin Vertigo



Frédéric Dard (1921-2000) was one of the best known and loved French crime writers of the twentieth century. Enormously prolific, he wrote hundreds of thrillers, suspense stories, plays and screenplays throughout his long and illustrious career. The Executioner Weeps (for which he won the 1957 Grand prix de littérature policière) and The King of Fools are also available from Pushkin Vertigo. David Bellos was an English translator and biographer. His translations include several of Georges Simenon's Maigret novels, as well as Paul Fournel's Dear Reader, published by Pushkin Press. He also published biographies of Perec, Jacques Tati and Romain Gary and an introduction to translation, Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything.



Melancholy and atmospheric, with a twist worthy of Agatha Christie at her devious best, this brief tale has the hallmark of classic French noir



Hugely atmospheric



The French master of noir



Alongside the Maigret novels of Georges Simenon there is a rich vein of period French crime still to be tapped. Frédéric Dard is a case in point



Disturbing from the outset with strong echoes of Dard's hero Simenon



This short, sly novel of the night has more than enough substance and mystery to keep readers awake and engrossed



It's exceedingly clever - when surprising things happen they slap you in the face for being so obvious, so necessary and so vital yet so surprising at the same time, and you can only squirm more enjoyably into your seat as you read on



A typically tense and yearning tale... One eagerly awaits forthcoming translations to see whether he can do the trick over again



It's a brilliant book, and though Frédéric Dard may have been 'one of the best known and loved French crime writers of the twentieth century' he's new to me, so this was a real discovery and treat all rolled into one



It's a short, sharp story featuring a handful of brilliantly portrayed characters, and is structured as intriguingly and cunningly as an Escher drawing



It is a tribute to the quality of the writing that Dard can contain so much tension, surprise and mystery in so few words



Imbued with a tantalising mix of Patricia Highsmith and Alfred Hitchcock



If you're a fan of Film Noir, you'll love Bird in a Cage... if all the novels in the Vertigo series are this good, I predict I'll be needing more bookshelves



A slick novella... the ending is deliciously ambiguous... a triumph



The literary descendant of Simenon and Celine



No question: for me, he was the greatest



His language is cutting, his point-of-view original and his verdict uncompromising... One of the few twentieth-century authors to win both critical acclaim and great popularity



France's most popular post-war author