Intrigue

On improvising a burglary at a shady tycoon's home, Fred takes refuge in the hip and surreal universe of the Paris Metro and encounters its assorted denizens, the tycoon's henchmen and his disenchanted young wife.

Fred is living in the Paris Metro system. He is blackmailing Helena, whose safe he has robbed. Fred has various 'friends' all living in this surreal setting. The Roller is a rollerskating bag snatcher and Big Bill is a 'strongman'. The blackmail and Freds relationship with Helena and her heavies make up the bulk of the plot but on the side are Freds attempts to start a band using buskers from the Metro.—Matthew Stanfield <mattst@cogs.susx.ac.uk>

On the run from the police and the dangerous henchmen of the powerful entrepreneur he has just robbed, the suave and eccentric thief, Fred, takes refuge in the vast subterranean system of the Parisian Métro. But, as Héléna, the millionaire's chic and supercilious wife, needs her stolen things back, Fred plunges himself deeper and deeper into an obscure secret world, where a self-sustaining enclave of outcasts and social pariahs, inevitably, become his new family. Can a flaxen-haired punk in a black dinner jacket find freedom in the subway's dark and dank tunnels? Will Fred ever fulfil his artistic aspiration?—Nick Riganas

Fred, a raffish safe blower, takes refuge in the Paris Metro after being chased by the henchmen of a shady businessman from whom he has just stolen some documents. While hiding out in the back rooms and conduits of the Metro, Fred encounters a subterranean society of eccentric characters and petty criminals. Despite being pursued by the henchmen, Fred finds the time to flirt with Helena, blow a safe, rob a train, evade the hapless Metro police and start a rock band ...—Anonymous

Fred lives an opportunistic existence in the Paris subway system, surviving on whatever he can scam or steal. In this brutal, violent subterranean world, lit only by an artificial fluorescent glow and populated by all sorts of strange denizens, loyalty to one's friends is more a liability than an asset. Still, even one such as Fred has dreams, and his are to create a popular rock group and to marry the rich woman from whom he is extorting money.—Tad Dibbern <DIBBERN_D@a1.mscf.upenn.edu>