Murder in Paris '68

"Impressive. Chisholm’s riveting and disturbingly fun Murder in Paris ’68 digs into this lurid murder mystery with an exciting, youthful insouciance. But the electrifying brilliance of Murder in Paris ’68 isn’t merely the whodunit of a celebrity crime story. Chisholm uses the murder as a launchpad to capture the radically changing society of 1960s France." —Christopher Bollen, The New York Times Book Review

"Evocative, gripping and beautifully written. I've recommended this book to everyone I know!” —Emerald Fennell, award winning film director of Saltburn and "Wuthering Heights"

A riveting true crime investigation into the 1960s Parisian underworld and an unsolved murder that brought the country to its knees.

An intimate, shocking true story from the Parisian demi-monde of the 1960s, Murder in Paris ’68 evokes an era when the high-life and the low-life went hand in hand. It was a time when the French New Wave of cinema was taking the world by storm, a time of glamour, sports cars, casinos, and night clubs—and at the heart of it all, the man of the moment, the enigmatic film star Alain Delon, dubbed "the most beautiful man in the world."

With a shady past and a taste for bad company and high-living, Delon lived on the edge. But when a dead body turns up in the outskirts of Paris that turns out to be Stevan Markovic, Delon's friend, “bodyguard,” and associate, questions begin to be asked. That Delon shot to stardom playing Tom Ripley with all those stylish and murderous associations does not go unnoticed. Is art imitating life or is life imitating art? What is Delon involved in? And who was Stevan Markovic?

In an exceptionally skilful and highly readable work of narrative nonfiction, Edward Chisholm uses his own detailed in-depth research to weave the reader into an intimate patchwork of events as they unfold, submersing us in 1960s Paris. And as we meet the characters—actresses, directors, petty criminals, state prosecutors, high-level gangsters, star-struck policemen, compromised politicians—we witness what became to be known as The Markovic Affair from the inside, as it spirals out of control and not only pulls down Alain Delon, but everyone within his orbit.