Eugéne Tarpon, the private-eye protagonist from Manchette’s No Room at the Morgue , appears once more for a characteristically brisk and brutal story full of unexpected comedy and feeling.

Sex, drugs, and . . . murder. Private eye Eugène Tarpon (previously seen in Jean-Patrick Manchette’s No Room at the Morgue ) returns for another punishing round against the forces of greed and malfeasance. Along the way he drags his only friends, Charlotte Malrakis and Jean-Baptiste Haymann, through some gruesome episodes of their own. In Skeletons in the Closet , Manchette aims his dark humor at corruption at the highest “spiritual” and political levels. A savage page-turner with a heart.