The Wicked Go to Hell by Frédéric Dard

First published in France in 1956; published in translation by Pushkin Press on August 4, 2016

The Wicked Go to Hell is one of the oddest thrillers I’ve read. First published in France in 1956, it is one of more than 300 books authored by Frédéric Dard, who died in 2000. The novel is as much a male bonding story as it is a crime story. Of course, a woman comes between the two protagonists -- hey, Dard was French -- but ultimately the story is about two men who come to love each other in the way that only hardened killers can.

Frank and Hal enter prison at the same time. They are assigned to the same cell. They both sustained cuts and bruises that they attribute to being worked over by the police. The reader knows that one of the men is a spy who tried to steal secrets and, after being arrested, refused to reveal the organization that employs him. The other man is an undercover cop, assigned to get information from the spy. The reader does not know, however, which one is the spy and which is the informant. In the end, it may not matter, since the point of the story is that the line between law enforcer and law breaker is sometimes too thin to perceive.

Another point that the novel makes overtly is the notion that no man is truly bad. That’s true, but Frank and Hal come pretty close. The corollary might be that no man is truly good, even if he supposedly serves the cause of justice.

Much of the story is unbelievable, unless it’s acceptable in France for the police to murder innocent victims. Yet as difficult as it was to suspend my disbelief in large parts of the story, I found myself not caring whether the plot was credible. The key plot device -- the reader doesn’t know whether Frank or Hal is the good guy until the novel’s end -- is just brilliant. A wild closing scene makes up for some earlier scenes that border on melodrama. For all its faults, I was completely caught up in this brief, fast moving, story about two violent men who each discover something about their true natures after they become friends.

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