Crime novelist sued for setting plot around Paris landmark
Lalie Walker wrote latest thriller as a tribute to a Montmartre fabric store, but store's owners say the book is defamatory
by  Lizzy Davies, Paris -  guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 17 March 2010
 

Fabrics on sale in the Marché Saint Pierre. Photograph: Christopher Unwin / Alamy

When Lalie Walker set about using the Marché Saint Pierre as the setting for her latest crime thriller she thought she was paying a nostalgic tribute to a much-loved Parisian landmark.
But, after reading her tale of a crazed killer who sews fear and loathing among the rolls of taffeta, the owners of the much-loved Montmartre fabric store have signalled that they do not appreciate her gesture.

Arguing that certain passages in her fictional depiction of a business rocked by threats, voodoo and staff abductions are defamatory, they are taking her to court and demanding €2m (£1.8m) in damages.

Walker, the author of several crime novels set in the French capital, said she was "flabbergasted" by the lawsuit, expected to come to court next month. "In no way is this a thriller which is 'anti' the Marché Saint Pierre. I wrote the novel from an affectionate point of view," she said.




 But Village d'Orsel, the business which runs the Marché Saint Pierre, insists that the book – Aux Malheurs des Dames, a play on an Emile Zola novel set in Paris's 19th-century department stores – tarnishes its image. For more than 60 years the multi-storey shop has provided customers with a wealth of materials at low cost from its building at the foot of the Butte, or hill, of Montmartre.

By describing a mysterious – and fictional – malaise afflicting the self-declared "kingdom of fabric", it says the book gives a false impression of the Marché.
The full story at The Guardian.