Symphonie en 6.35 has one of the nicer French covers we’ve seen, with its tough femme fatale and outline of a 6.35 mm baby Browning pistol, which was sometimes marketed as a gun women could carry in a purse. Unfortunately the art is uncredited. We know all about the inside of the book, though. It was written by Ange Beaucaire for Éditions Hachette’s Collection le Point d’ Interrogation.
This was Beaucaire’s first novel, published in 1954, and is a detective yarn set in the Parisian underworld starring a police commissioner who must solve the murder of a retiree, and later the kidnapping and murder of the retiree’s mistress. It all leads to the uncovering of a drug cartel. The book was nominated for a Prix Quai des Orfèvres, which is an award bestowed by a jury composed of not only publishing figures, but cops, judges, and crime journalists, and chaired by whoever happens to be the Director of the Paris Judicial Police at the time. So, nice honor for Beaucaire his first time out.
Of course, being French he for some reason wrote under a pseudonym, and in this case the fingers tapping the typewriter actually belonged to Jacques Leblic and Olivier Séchan. The two went on to write at least two other novels. We’ll see if we can dig up more info on the cover. We have a few suspicions who did it but we’ll refrain from guessing for now.
