L'Attentat de Saint-Nazaire

About this issue

L'Attentat de Saint-Nazaire is an unpublished detective novel by Alain Martial, serialized in this pulp collection. The narrative opens with a taxi accident on a road near Saint-Nazaire: a speeding cab swerves to avoid a runaway cart and crashes, exploding violently and killing the driver, Raoul Purtiat. A wounded passenger is seen dying by a peasant witness but vanishes before authorities arrive, leaving only blood at the scene. Inspector Charpent investigates the peculiar disappearance while taxi drivers at the station reveal that Purtiat lied to his wife about his morning movements. The Paris Municipal Laboratory's analysis reveals the explosion resulted from a detonator—a bomb set on a timer. Charpent deduces the passenger was the intended target, and his recovery and removal were deliberate. The case becomes inexplicably more complex. The narrative shifts to La Baule's beach resort, where a well-dressed man named Michel Vaudreuil takes daily walks. He observes with interest another beachgoer's careless cigarette case spill, helped by a third man Vaudreuil recognizes as Karl Frohmann—someone whose reappearance troubles him.