A literary film noir - reissue of the third volume of the Black Trilogy. Léo Malet masterfully and succinctly depicts the dark nights of an outsider. Paulot, a small-time con artist and pickpocket, falls into bad company. He becomes a member of a Parisian gang of crooks that carries out bank robberies using gentle methods, meaning without bloodshed; until one day, tormented by nightmares, Paulot shoots a cashier during a heist. A police and media witch hunt unfolds across France, portraying Paulot as a bloodthirsty killer. Malet, a vagabond, casual laborer, newspaper distributor, chansonnier, and anarchist who mingled with the Parisian surrealists in the 1930s and was friends with Breton and Dalí, wrote this novel in the late 1940s. It is part of the heavily autobiographically tinted series.