(Courtesy of Didier Poiret)

Peter Cheyney. Ombres dans la rue [Dark street], Translation Serge Denis,  Paris, Presses de la Cité, 1949 (Un mystère, 79)

As the blurb below indicates, 3 million books by Peter Cheyney were sold every year, not including translations. In France, and in many European countries, he was one of the post-war biggest sellers. While Cheyney was the first author published in the Série Noire, lending the latter some of its tone and humour, it is in the series’ major competitor, the Presses de la Cité’s, “Un mystère” series that his books had the most alluring covers.