Murder at the Frankfurt Book Fair

Murder at the Frankfurt Book Fair (also known as Dead Copy in the UK) is a satirical crime novel by Hubert Monteilhet, originally published in French as Mourir à Francfort ou le Malentendu in 1975. The narrative is presented as alternating entries in the diaries of the two protagonists, and the same event is often depicted from two contrasting points of view.

Murder at the Frankfurt Book Fair
First edition
AuthorHubert Monteilhet
Original titleMourir à Francfort ou le Malentendu
TranslatorBarbara Bray
CountryFrance
LanguageFrench
GenreCrime fiction, satire
PublisherÉditions Denoël, Doubleday
Publication date
1975
Published in English
1976
Media typePrint

Plot

Dominique Labattut-Largaud, is a German literature professor at the Sorbonne who also writes pulp thrillers and historical adventures under assorted pen names. To his embarrassment, the professor’s secret life as a literary hack is discovered by Cecile Dubois, a young librarian, his former student and admirer. When he approaches her trying to protect his academic reputation, she mistakenly believes he is attracted to her, though he is a middle-aged married man with two children. Then Labattut-Largaud decides to get even with his boorish publisher Grouillot by plagiarizing an obscure 18th-century novel by Abbé Prévost. What started as a practical joke, quickly gets out of control. Labattut-Largaud's book, titled Equivocations, becomes a runaway bestseller and wins a prestigious literary prize, which makes the unscrupulous publisher even happier. The fraud is discovered by Cecile who is righteously outraged. Desperate to prevent her from causing a scandal, Labattut-Largaud begins a reluctant affair with Cecile, which culminates in a fatal confrontation at the Frankfurt book fair.

English language editions

The novel was published by Doubleday in the United States in 1976.[1] The UK edition, titled Dead Copy: Murder at the Frankfurt Book Fair, was published the same year by TBS The Book Service Ltd.[2]

Reception

The New York Times called it "a caper that has a sharp cutting edge", “terribly witty and lighthearted” and “altogether a superior piece of work: sophisticated, mad in its way, and full of all too recognizable types.”[3] The Times Literary Supplement called it "an entertaining thriller of intrigues set in the world of international publishing."[4]

References
  1. Monteilhet, Hubert. (1976). Murder at the Frankfurt book fair (1st ed.). Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday. ISBN 0385034539. OCLC 2212700.
  2. Hubert Monteilhet (1976). Dead copy. London: Macdonald and Jane's. ISBN 0354040278. OCLC 152318666.
  3. Callendar, Newgate (1976-10-03). "Review". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-08-23.
  4. "Reviews". The Times Literary Supplement. 1976-11-26.

Murder at the Frankfurt book fair at the Internet Archive

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