Hannelore Cayre is an award-winning French novelist, screenwriter, and director, and a practicing criminal lawyer. Her works include Legal Aid, Masterpieces, and Like It Is in the Movies. She has directed several short films and the adaptation of Commis d’office (Legal Aid) is her first feature-length film. Cayre lives in Paris. After working as a lawyer in Sydney and London, Stephanie Smee made her literary translation debut with an English translation of the Countess de Ségur’s Fleurville Trilogy.
"Breaking Bad meets Weeds, with a French suburban twist ... Acerbic
and witty, casting a sharp eye on both failing social systems and
the fruitless 'war on drugs', Patience is one of the standout
characters in this year's crime fiction crop, and you'll be rooting
for her all the way." -- The Guardian
"The Godmother is witty, pithy and distinctively French with an
emphasis on character development rather than action although
there's no shortage of that, either ... Cayre is a first-rate
novelist and she doesn't waste a word in this excellent short novel
with dealers, traffickers, cops and quirky Frenchmen all getting
their time on the page. Compliments are also due to translator
Stephanie Smee who keeps the pace going and seems to get the rhythm
of the language in the original." -- Globe and Mail
"The Godmother was sassy and fun and from the first page I was
immediately smitten with our narrator, the Widow Portefeux ... The
pacing in The Godmother was excellent and the overall length of the
novel was perfect, leaving me more than satisfied but wanting more.
The translation by Smee was flawless and smooth. Cayre's writing
was wickedly funny and I found myself laughing out loud more than a
few times." -- Crazy Book Lady Reviews blog
"Cayre is droll and without illusions about human nature. That she
describes the lives and crimes of the petty drug dealers without
social-working them is bracing. And she plots so cunningly she
might have written the entire French TV series Spiral, or a compact
version of The Wire." -- The Monthly
"Cayre's middle-aged protagonist delivers her darkly comic
adventure in the underworld with sardonic intelligence . . .
[Cayre's] trick is a magnificent one: Patience's irresistible
narration, never didactic, moves at an impressive clip as the
reader roots all the while for the criminal -- a woman in a man's
world, battling race, age and gender while cheerfully ignoring
ethics." -- New York Times Book Review
"Exuberant ... Maybe crime doesn't pay, but the guile and guts --
and humour -- with which Patience approaches this extreme solution
to her desperate situation, right under the noses of law
enforcement, is admirable, as are her survival instincts. Readers
will be anxious about the fate of the forthright, sympathetic
Patience up to the final page. It's no surprise that this novel won
the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, France's most prestigious
award for crime fiction." -- Publishers Weekly STARRED review
"It's a pleasure to read such a complex, strong female character,
at this stage of life ... While not a long book, The Godmother
packs a lot of story into its 197 pages, and is driven by some
snappy dialogue. Patience is one character that will linger with
you long after the final page. This is an unusual crime novel,
perfect to curl up with over the weekend." -- Better Reading
"Packed full of dark humor, keen observation, a suspenseful plot
and a stand-out main character ... I was instantly struck by the
quality of the prose and the attendant storytelling ... What a
book!" -- Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine
"This book is exuberant and understated all at once; an almost
stream-of-consciousness calamity of French darkness and humour, it
follows a woman with more practicality than passion who sees the
world in myriad fascinating ways. It's thrilling to read a crime
novel from the point of view of the Bad Guy (and without the usual
prologues and asides of a predator's grim thoughts) ... Translated
with spunk by Stephanie Smee, this is absolute champagne
entertainment." -- Readings bookstore
"This slender and sardonic novel, a prizewinning best seller in
France, features a middle-aged heroine as a drug-running crime boss
and offers an entire ethnographic study of North African immigrants
in the Parisian suburbs." -- The New York Times
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