Meeting a Master of Mystery: An Interview with Paul Halter

There are many people I would like to thank for making this post possible. First and foremost, it is thanks to John Pugmire that I was able to get in touch with M. Paul Halter, and without him, this interview would have been impossible. Words cannot express my gratitude. I would also like to thank M. Paul Halter, who bravely tolerated a barrage of questions from my direction and graciously answered them all. I conducted this interview via e-mail in French— French-speaking readers may want to read the original version of this interview, which I posted here — and Xavier Lechard kindly helped me to translate some of the more tricky passages, also taking the time to read the entire thing after I finished. Thank you very much for your continued support, Xavier. Finally, my thanks go out to Barry Ergang, who took a look at my translation and gave detailed suggestions for improvements.

Murder has no language barrier

Paul Halter’s 1997 novel Les Sept merveilles du crime (The Seven Wonders of Crime) has now been published in English, thanks to the relentless efforts of translator John Pugmire. It is the second Owen Burns novel to be translated after Le Roi du désordre (The Lord of Misrule) and the third Halter published in English, hot on the heels of his award-winning La Quatrième porte (The Fourth Door).

The Seven Wonders of Crime is centered on a fascinating idea. Owen Burns and Achilles Stock are back in action as a serial killer begins to terrorize the nation. The faceless madman is striking again and again, killing people in apparently impossible ways and all the while patterning his murders on the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: the Great Pyramid of Cheops, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Lighthouse of Alexandria. It’s an impressive to-do list and the killer is making his job harder by sending taunting messages along to the police, not by handwriting his message or pasting it with various letters from newspapers, but by painting his messages onto canvas. (Naturally, I use “he” to describe the killer merely as a matter of convenience. It could be anyone or anything, so don't take the choice of pronoun as a clue.)

An Improbable Fiction

“Truth, I may remind you, is stranger than fiction.”

“Spare me that tedious lie. You are quoting the only paradox which unimaginative people ever succeeded in inventing. And it is not true. It is insidious propaganda on the part of cheerless souls who want to make fiction as dull as truth. … What we need is some fearless iconoclast who will come out boldly against this damnable tyranny, saying, ‘Fiction is stranger than truth.’”

— Henri Bencolin, The Lost Gallows

La Nuit du loup (The Night of the Wolf) is thus far the only short story collection written by Paul Halter, and it was also his first book to be translated and published into English (back in 2007). It’s a wonderful collection that brings together all sorts of stories: some set in modern day, some starring Dr. Alan Twist, and others featuring Owen Burns. Halter has written several other short stories that have been uncollected thus far, and there’s enough to warrant a second collection, which would be most welcome.

However, it’s important to emphasize that I have read and will be reviewing the original French edition of La Nuit du Loup. There are several differences between the English translation and the original book. For one thing, the French edition contains only nine short stories (although the back cover claims it’s eight), while the English translation features ten. One of the original short stories was dropped because it was impossible to translate into English, and two others were added to bring the total up to ten: L’Abominable bonhomme de neige (The Abominable Snowman) and Le Spectre doré (The Golden Ghost). Finally, the order of the short stories is fairly different, although both English and French editions end with the titular short story.

Le sang va couler...

Paul Halter is a French author who has gotten considerable praise, with comparisons left and right telling you he’s the reincarnation of John Dickson Carr. However, the modern American mystery market is flooded with the kind of modern mysteries that I hate— emphasis is no longer laid on the story, but on “literary” elements of writing (which often aren’t that hot to begin with). I’ve given this rant many times already, so I’ll spare you having to listen to the whole thing again. Paul Halter, who unashamedly clings on to Golden Age ideals, has found it rather difficult to get his books published in the English-speaking world, despite rave reviews for the translated La Nuit du Loup (Night of the Wolf). Therefore, John Pugmire, a relentless soldier in the cause to get Halter translated and published in English, decided to publish Le Roi du Désordre (The Lord of Misrule) himself. However, understanding French rather well myself, I read Le Roi du Désordre in its original French. This was my first full-length Halter novel, and it’s a good one. While far from perfect, it is a good showcase of Halter’s strengths and weaknesses, and it has made me a Halter fan.