Paris and Elsewhere by Richard Cobb

I can't remember where I first read about this book--I was convinced it was in some essay or review by Luc Sante but now I can't find it (though it makes a lot of sense why I would think that). Richard Cobb was a British-born historian who, after a brief stint living in Paris just before college, became a devout Francophile. His interests lay in the history of people and places on the fringes of society--that of murderers, prostitutes, dives, flophouses, and the like. This collection of essays offers the reader a glimpse into a side of 1950s Paris unseen by most, providing a picturesque, richly detailed portrait of a bygone time and place.