lÃ©o malet (7 march 1909 â 3 march 1996) was a french crime novelist and surrealist. ==biography== leo malet was born in montpellier. he had little formal education and began work as a cabaret singer at "la vache enragee" in montmartre, paris in 1925. in the 1930s, he was closely aligned with the surrealists, and was close friends with andrÃ© breton, renÃ© magritte and yves tanguy, amongst others. during this time, he published several volumes of poetry. he died in chÃ¢tillon, a little town just south of paris where he had lived for most of his life, four days before his 87th birthday. ==works== though having dabbled in many genres, he is most famous for nestor burma, the anti-hero of les nouveaux mystÃ¨res de paris. burma, a cynical private detective, is an astute speaker of argot (french slang), an ex-anarchist, a serial monogamist and an inveterate pipe smoker. of the 33 novels detailing his adventures, eighteen take place in a sole arrondissement of paris, in a sub-series of his exploits which malet dubbed the "new mysteries of paris" quoting eugene sue's seminal "feuilleton"; though he never completed the full 20 arrondissements as he originally planned. apart from the novels, five short stories were also published, bringing the total of burma's adventures to 38. the comic artist jacques tardi adapted some of his books much to the author's approval claiming that he was the sole person to have visually understood his books; tardi also provided cover illustrations for the fleuve noir editions of the novels, released from the 1980s onward. ==selected bibliography== * 120, rue de la gare (1943) * le cinquiÃ¨me procÃ©dÃ© (1948) * le soleil naÃ®t derriÃ¨re le louvre (1954) (first of the "new mysteries of paris" series) * des kilomÃ¨tres de linceuls (1955) * fiÃ¨vre au marais (1955) * la nuit de saint-germain-des-prÃ©s (1955) * m'as-tu vu en cadavre (1956) * brouillard au pont de tolbiac (1956) * casse-pipe Ã  la nation (1957) * micmac moche au boul' mich'  (1957) * nestor burma court la poupÃ©e (1971) * poste restante (1983) ==comic book adaptations== * brouillard au pont de tolbiac (casterman, 1982); drawn by: jacques tardi * 120, rue de la gare (casterman, 1988); drawn by: jacques tardi * une gueule de bois en plomb (casterman, 1990); drawn by: jacques tardi * casse-pipe Ã  la nation (casterman, 1996); drawn by: jacques tardi * m'as-tu vu en cadavre ? (casterman, 2000); drawn by: jacques tardi ==external links== *short biography in italian  {{persondata | name = malet, leo | alternative names = | short description = french writer | date of birth = 7 march 1909 | place of birth = | date of death = 3 march 1996 | place
1909_births 1996_deaths 20th-century_French_novelists French_crime_fiction_writers People_from_Montpellier Surrealist_writers Writers_from_Languedoc-Roussillon