This thesis examines the work of Jean-Patrick Manchette (1942-1995), the most significant French crime fiction writer of the 1970s. It explores the political dynamics at play in the writings of this author, who was avowedly interested in the history of artistic avant-gardes and revolutionary movements. It pays particular attention to the presence of ultra-left ideas, above all those of the Situationist International (1957-1972). This research aims on the one hand to rectify Manchette scholarship regarding the specific nature of this author’s political influences and on the other to offer a case-study of the contradictory effects that the Situationist International (SI) had on writers of their time. Manchette, conscious of a problem of consistency between his interest in the SI and his desire to have a career as writer, called himself “pro-situ” (a derogatory term coined by the Situationists) and described his novels as “feuilleton-like co-optations of the social movement", picking up on Jaime Semprun’s definition of “recuperation”. Chapter One considers Manchette’s nonfiction texts, in particular the regular columns he wrote on American noir, a genre emerging from the 1920-1940 “counter-revolution”. Manchette compares Dashiell Hammett’s novels to Trojan horses infiltrating American mass culture. Manchette’s political theory leads him to reflect on the possibility of writing creatively in the revolutionary period of the 1970s. Chapters Two and Three discuss the fact that Manchette did write, despite the unresolved political contradictions, and experimented with strategies which bear the traces of his political influences. Chapter Two studies Manchette’s stylistic choices, especially his use of repetition and its relation to Situationist détournement. Chapter Three examines the way in which Manchette integrates geopolitical debates into his novels, in particular his critique of terrorism and how it relates to the Debordian “Spectacle.” It also analyzes how Manchette’s novels narratively underline individual alienation and dialectically point to collective revolution. An appendix explores the “Holocaust denial” circles within the 1980s ultra-left and clarifies Manchette’s position in that debate.