Invited on November 2, 2021 at the new headquarters of the judicial police in Paris, Nadia Farès was able to present the 75th price of the quai des Orfèvres to Véronique de Haas for her novel The red muse in the presence of Didier Lallement, Prefect of Police and Honorary President of the Prize. Created in 1946 by Jacques Catineau, this prize crowns each year, on an anonymous manuscript, a French novel describing the operating methods of the French police and justice.
Rewarded by the jury placed under the chairmanship of Christian Sainte, regional director of the judicial police of the Prefecture of Police, and composed of about twenty personalities occupying (or having occupied) functions or an activity allowing them to pass judgment on the universe of the police, the author presented a work marked by the Parisian revolt of the 1920s which retraces the life of Victor Dessange.
The pitch? Back in the capital after World War I, Victor Dessange investigates the murder of an official representative of the Republic of China in a brothel. A breathtaking story that won over all the members of the 2022 Quai des Orfèvres Prize jury, including the godmother, Nadia Farès.
Passionate about history and more particularly the period between the wars, Véronique de Haas is the mother of four children and was a professor of literature for forty years. According to her, the world of the police is extremely interesting to understand the multiple facets and problems of our society.
Before Nadia Fares, other big names from the small and big screen were godfathers and godmothers of the Quai des Orfèvres Prize as Alice Taglioni, Marc Lavoine, Jean Dujardin, Patrick Bruel or even Guy Marchand.