Mystery Review: Nada is told at times almost like a police report. A stripped down, hard-boiled means of description that may at times evolve into something like familiar novelistic exposition, and only periodically touch the level of human emotions. More caper story or thriller than mystery. Although the conspirators are Marxists, anarchists, nihilists, communists, or just lost or confused alcoholics, this isn't primarily a political novel. Instead it addresses the aftermath of the rage of the Sixties when society hit a dead end, burned out, without direction. When it wasn't clear that politics meant anything any more. In the midst of the cold description, the hopeless eyes, the dead dreams, the moments of humanity that Jean-Patrick Manchette (1942-95) gives us become all that more precious. Rather than politics, he shares moments of philosophy, psychology, sociology. In Nada Manchette was trying to write a modern, maybe peculiarly French version of noir. His characters are uniquely his own. A moll brags: "My cool and chic exterior hides the wild flames of a burning hatred for ... techno-bureaucratic-capitalism," but she believes in "universal harmony." Each of the conspirators have their own origin story, and together they're emblematic of the debris of society: "Modern history created us, which only shows that civilization is on the eve of destruction." Manchette, or at least his characters, seems to think society was in the midst of an upheaval rivaling that which existed after the First World War. The government, the media, and desperation drive the story. Evil is on both sides. Nada isn't short on violence or gore, but is a thoughtful thrill ride that can be pure entertainment, or give the reader pause to reflect on the humanity around us. [4★]
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