Véronique Willemin is the author of La Mondaine: Histoire et archives de la Police des Moeurs (2009) and co-author, with Michel Dixmier, of L’Oeil de la Police: Crimes et châtiments à la belle époque (2007), two very interesting, useful and well-illustrated books on policing and night-life in 20th-century France. Her new book, Les secrets de la nuit (Flammarion) is an exhaustive (600 pages), well-informed and intriguing oral history of Parisian night life since the 1950s, based on extensive interviews with principal actors in the nightlife sector and with police officials. It also contains a fascinating account of Willemin’s involvement in the organization of the Etats généraux de la nuit held in Paris in 2010.
The Urban Night 