Prestigious French publisher HB Editions will publish all O'Brien's novels in French, the first, entitled Les fleurs sont faciles à tuer, came out on 20th February 2006. She has long wanted to be translated into French. The french take Noir fiction seriously, they don't separate "literary" from genre fiction, rather they judge each book on its merits. They don't suffer from literary snobbery in the way that the English do.

"It's the nicest thing that's happened to me for a long time." O'Brien says.

O'Brien worked closely with translator Lalla Lenda and editor François Bouchardeau and it has gone well. The title for Close Up on Death was to be Mort en Gros Plan but was changed to a quote from John Bright himself – Les fleurs sont faciles à tuer.

HB Editions have bought translation rights to six of the books and will be bringing them out in chronological order. They had a chapter of the translation of the first book Close Up on Death in time for the Fête de Livres – particularly devoted to the Polar – in Forcalquier on June 4th, 2005. O'Brien signed and sold several copies of all her books there (English versions) and copies can also be found of all the books in Provence at the English bookshop Book in Bar in Aix en Provence. O'Brien's husband, photographer Michael Moulds, held an exhibition of pictures at Book in Bar in 2006.

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