Summer 1969. Skip turns the pages of his newspaper and stops on an ad: “Lost July 16th, afternoon, Champs-Élysées district, silver ring with inscription: Katerine-6-5-9. High reward. Reply to the newspaper, which will pass it on.”
No need to check his inside pocket, it’s the ring he stole. He had sniffed out the good stuff, but had been disappointed not to find a wallet or a watch. The ring was all there was, despite taking one being the most difficult thing a pickpocket can do. Skip could get a nice sum of money by returning it, but gets scared when he realizes that he has robbed Gregoire Molyneux, a business and financial bigwig. And Katerine, what kind of wife is she? Skip is usually content to cross paths with his victims, he does not stalk them, but for Katerine he makes an exception. By spying on the Molyneuxs, he will steal a part of their lives even if it risks revealing his own.
The sense of observation is essential when you are a pickpocket. Jean-Hubert Gailliot also possesses it, to the highest degree, with a striking recreation of the atmosphere of Paris in the late 1960s. Mixing the noir novel with a study of manners, he puts two worlds that usually do not cross, that of the bourgeoisie and that of thugs, on a collision course.
