Frederic Dard is known as the French 'Master of Noir', whose dark crime novels stand with the team of Boileau-Narcejac (She Who Was No More and Vertigo) as timeless classics.
With a passion that can't be buried, The Gravediggers' Bread is a new take on the murderous love triangle plot.
Young Blaise arrives in a small provincial French town to find the job already taken. Without prospects or money, he is thrilled to find a wallet filled with 8,000 francs. The blonde was inside the phone booth when she dropped it, he was waiting outside; you have to wait patiently outside a telephone booth occupied by a woman to really appreciate just how much the fairer sex likes to talk. Attracted and intrigued, he follows her to her home, the town funeral parlour shared with her older husband, Monsieur Castain. Impressed by the honesty of returning the wallet intact, he is offered the job of funeral assistant, and is soon a better casket salesman than Castain.
When the husband is out of town, Germaine gives in to Blaise's charms and the two share an intense affair. Never mind that Germaine already has another man in a nearby town, that is soon ended. What else has ended is Blaise's patience with Castain; the gruff husband hits his wife and would be better out of the way. At a funeral, Blaise manages to knock Castain out and fit him into the coffin with the deceased. Castain has now mysteriously vanished.
Months after Castain's disappearance, the couple are approached by the police. There is talk the man buried that fateful day (with Castain) had been poisoned, the body must be exhumed. There follows a gripping and intense night where Blaise himself opens the vault to remove Castain before they find him, leaving him off in a marshy bog. Problem solved.
That Blaise did not even have to go through that ordeal is not the worst of it, once Castain is found the accusing finger points towards Germaine. The only way to save her now is for Blaise to confess everything he has done - but even that is not enough when it's discovered he did not kill Castain!
This is filled with twists, and although it may seem I have given you the entire plot, there are more storylines packed into 157 pages. Murderous love triangle themes are not uncommon, but this has the air of provincial France in the 1950's and some over-the-top scenes (especially the well told night he opens the vault of coffins to retrieve the rotting body!).
For those who love Noir in the style Les Diaboliques and Elevator To The Gallows, this is a well written and timeless crime novel of a man who is driven to save himself and his lover, at all costs. Never mind that he dug his own grave, or rather, dug someone else's.
My other reviews for Frederic Dard:
1957 / Tradeback / 157 pages
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