The books running for the 2025 edition
The 10 members of the jury of the Quais du Polar’s readers’ prize, in partnership with Le Figaro, will select the best French-language crime novel of the year, from a selection made by the festival’s partner booksellers:
Malheur aux vaincus by Gwenaël Bulteau – La Manufacture de livres
L’Agent by Pascale Dietrich – Liana Levi
Chevreuil by Sébastien Gendron – Gallimard
Reine by Pauline Guéna – Denoël
Stella et l’Amérique by Joseph Incardona – Finitude
Eureka dans la nuit by Anne-Sophie Kalbfleisch – Le Rouergue
The jury
Each year, the Quais du Polar festival awards the Readers’ Prize to a French-language novel published during the year. The jury brings together ten readers selected by Quais du Polar, two representatives of the Quais du Polar organization, and a representative of Le Figaro. Together, they designate “the” French-language crime novel of the past year from a selection of six novels previously chosen by the festival’s partner booksellers.
Previous winners
In previous editions, the prize was awarded to DOA for Les Fous d’Avril (2005), Franck Thilliez for La Chambre des morts (2006), François Boulay for Traces (2007), Marcus Malte for Garden of Love (2008), Caryl Férey for Zulu (2009), Antoine Chainas for Anaisthêsia (2010), Serge Quadruppani for Saturne (2011), Antonin Varenne for Le Mur, le Kabyle et le marin (2012), Olivier Truc for Le Dernier Lapon (2013), Ian Manook for Yeruldelgger (2014), Jérôme Leroy for L’ange gardien (2015), Colin Niel for Obia (2016), Andrée A. Michaud for Bondrée (2017) et Gilda Piersanti for Illusions tragiques (2018), Frédéric Paulin for La guerre est une ruse (2019), Thomas Cantaloube for Requiem pour une République (2020), Patrice Gain for Le Sourire du scorpion (2021), Hervé le Corre for Traverser la nuit (2022), Roxanne Bouchard for Nous étions le sel de la mer (2023) and Morgan Audic for Personne ne meurt à Longyearbyen (2024).
