L'urbanisme en tant qu'élément de la stratégie de « bestsellerisation » du genre paralittéraire : le cas de Guillaume Musso

The article deals with a widespread cultural phenomenon of contemporary French popular literature, the modern crime novel best-seller. Using the example of the novel L’Appel de l’ange by the currently successful French author Guillaume Musso, it defines the best-seller procedures by which the success of the work is achieved on the international book market. These include a well constructed criminal story, tension, a love relationship, period clichés and paratextual elements. However, of all the components of bestsellerization to which the author tends, it is precisely urbanism that is understood and studied as the basic element that contains all the others. The city landscape is in perpetual motion where all modern means of transport come into action and reanimate the urban territory. The emphasis on the location of the work represents one of the reasons for its success on the market. Musso appropriates the places of megacities and transcribes the mode of their representation and perception. The space of the city envelops the destinies of the characters and hides the crime. The article offers a geopoetic look at these crime scenes in the world of Guillaume Musso.