At the thrillers book fair with a spy, in Lyon

Quais du polar : a fantastic free bookfair, with great bookshops, authors and organisation. And an opportunity to get to see the inside beautiful rooms of the Business palace. 

From the first floor, we can watch people gathering around, even queing to get Herlan Coben's signature.

This bookfair is above all meetings. I met Jean-Hugues Oppel, loved how he describes his writing work process : "You just have to tell reality. Detective novels are a good way to entertain people reading while questionning about the world. It has to be well done, the story has to work. I love to tell stories. Writers do have a moral responsability."

  

In the big hall, downstairs, bookshops present authors with their books. There's my street bookshop, Au bonheur des ogres. Last year they invited a writer I really appreciate, Gilles Legardinier, I met him while we were invited at the same bookfair. 

There's also a bookshop I cherish, la librairie Passages, I won a contest there with two illustrations for them as I was still studying at Ecole Emile Cohl :

 

On their stand, they wear a powerful tee-shirt saying "bookshops are not dead"...

One of the authors, Sam Millar, illustrates perfectly Jean-Paul Sartre who wonders "Do we have to live or tell ?" : Sam Millar lives and tells...

While I'm sketching the hall, a man comes by. It's the bookfair's spy ! He tells me about Sam Millar, his wife. He tells me he went to a barbecue at the Brinks, and when he saw all that money, he just couldn't resist, came back with a truck and went away with pretty much money in New York. CIA got him, but he says it's not as tough as English are... (his book : on the Brinks)

His wife is reading criminal enterprise. Isn't it ironic ?

Thanks for the organisation, it's been a great moment in the book world. 

Before I got to the festival, I met Ursula from Urban Sketchers Spain. She makes me try her Pilot Parallel fountain pen. Pretty lines, handy, I might get one. She's been adviced by Josu Maroto. Ursula also makes her own sketchbook, she found how to do it on the internet... It's useful for making wrinkled ones. I made one ici.