Usually when we think of French novels or films about Vichy France we think of the heroism of the Resistance. Modiano has a much darker subject: the grey zone of French collaboration. He is drawn to the murky worlds of gangsters, informers, collaborators and black marketeers . This is Modiano's world as it was in the time of his father in wartime Paris . La Place de l'Étoile is very unusual for Modiano. It's a shocking, almost hysterical rant by a French, Jewish anti-Semite, Raphael Schlemilovitch. It is nasty, brutish and short. It's a very knowing, literary work with references to French writers, Jewish and anti-Semitic alike, from Proust and Sartre to the notorious Jew-hater Brasillach .

Schlemilovitch constantly changes his identity. Few of Modiano's characters are sympathetic but Schlemilovitch is easily the least likeable . The Night Watch marks Modiano's breakthrough . The real change is in style. The narrative moves between a hazy, imprecise world where things are 'blurred' and 'fogged' to a precise world where everything is described in minute detail. Above all, there is a sense of mystery . By the end of Ring Roads , Modiano had found his voice and was on his way to becoming one of France's most fascinating contemporary writers.