May Impure Blood questions the limits of living together in a setting at the crossroads of Danny Boyle’s film Twenty-Eight Days Later and the series The Walking Dead and The Last of Us.

Matt, a financial advisor and young father, is enjoying a beer on a Parisian terrace when something strange occurs: all the leaves fall from the trees, followed by a shockwave reverberating through the capital. A Russian attack? A nuclear explosion? A volcanic eruption? An earthquake? Acting on the principle of precaution, the president orders a lockdown.

This leaves Matt, his wife Clem, and their little boy stuck in their suburban apartment building with their neighbors. Panic is not far off, but everyone tries to stay philosophical—until a terrifying epidemic begins to ravage the population. As societal principles crumble, they are replaced by the most barbaric savagery…

Michaël Mention was born in 1979. He gained recognition with his crime trilogy set in England, which earned him the Grand Prix du Roman Noir at the Beaune International .Thriller Film Festival in 2013 and the Transfuge Prize for Best New Crime Fiction in 2015.

He is the author of twelve novels, including Power (Éditions Stéphane Marsan, 2018), winner of the Grand Prix at the Sans Nom Festival in Mulhouse and the Prix Polars pourpres; La Voix secrète (10/18, 2017), Dehors les chiens (10/18, 2021) and Les Gentils (Belfond, 2023).