Frederic Dard (1921-2000) was one of the best known and loved French crime writers of the twentieth century. Enormously prolific, he wrote more than three hundred thrillers, suspense stories, plays and screenplays, under a variety of noms de plume, throughout his long and illustrious career, which also saw him win the 1957 Grand prix de litterature policiere for The Executioner Cries, available from Pushkin Vertigo in Autumn 2016. David Bellos is an English translator and biographer. His translations include several of Georges Simenon's Maigret novels, as well as Paul Fournel's Dear Reader, published by Pushkin Press. He has also written biographies of Perec, Jacques Tati and Romain Gary and an introduction to translation, Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything.