I Smell a Rat in the Cellar
Un cave dans le charbon

When François Clavère, a young press artist, moves into an apartment suddenly vacated by its previous tenant, his problems begin. He’s not put off by the verbal and physical threats, but they do make him suspicious of all the odd inhabitants of this building squeezed between the Paris streets of the rue Montorgueil and the rue Saint-Denis.  Somewhat despite himself, following several (often amusing) adventures and a bit the worse for wear, our young artist solves the mystery of the rue Saint-Sauveur.

The text is also the occasion to (re)discover the working-class Paris of the Halles markets.

Michel Grimaud is the pseudonym of Marcelle Perriod and Jean-Louis Fraysse.  The two authors have written about forty books for children (detective novels, science fiction, documentaries…) and three novels published by Denoël in the  « Présence du futur » series (Malakansâr, La Dame de cuir, L’Arbre d’or).