Renowned for subverting the rules of the crime genre, Japrisot broke down the established formulas "into their component pieces to re-combine them in original and paradoxical ways.

"[1] Some critics argue that though Japrisot's work may lack the explicit experimental element present in the novels of some of his contemporaries, it shows influences of structuralist theories and the unorthodox techniques of the New Novelists.

[7] In need to generate steady income, Rossi began working in advertising agencies, first as a writer, and then managing campaigns for Air France, Max Factor, and Formica.

Rossi replied that he preferred creating his own stories, and wrote and directed two short films: La machine à parler d’amour (1961) and L’idée fixe (1962).

His friend Robert Kanters, who then managed “Crime-club” collection at Denoël, offered Rossi a sizeable advance to write a crime novel.

He wrote original screenplays for Farewell Friend (1968), Rider on the Rain (1970), and And Hope to Die (1972), as well as directed the film adaptation of his debut novel Les Mal-partis (1975).

Japrisot then wrote two screenplays for Jean Becker: The Children of the Marshland (1999), adapting the 1958 novel by Georges Montforez, and A Crime in Paradise (2001), based on Sacha Guitry’s 1951 film La Poison.

"[15] Simon Kemp notes that Japrisot's two most characteristic literary techniques are subjectivity and polyphony – "restricted first-person perspectives and a none-too-harmonious chorus of voices – which together produce the unreliable narratives by which his mysteries are sustained."

"[19] Japrisot claimed that he didn't like reading, and that Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, and Ernest Hemingway’s Fifty Grand and other stories were all one needed to write well.

[4] Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and its sequel serve as a constant point of reference in Japrisot’s work, providing the epigraphs for One Deadly Summer, The Passion of Women, and A Very Long Engagement, and appearing as on-screen opening quotes in Rider on the Rain as well as in And Hope to Die.

"[20] Carroll's texts may have provided Japrisot with "the archetype of the young female protagonist in search of knowledge and identity" that figures in Trap for Cinderella, The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun, One Deadly Summer and A Very Long Engagement.

Jacques Dubois wrote in the preface: "Whilst Japrisot himself was indifferent to establishing a legacy at any cost, he nevertheless has that rare merit of compelling us to reconsider our criteria and opinions concerning great literature.

"[24] Martin Hurcombe and Simon Kemp wrote that because of his reputation as merely a crime fiction author "Japrisot has failed to receive due academic consideration and this despite the fact that many of his works appear on undergraduate syllabuses in Europe and North America.

In his writings one can find influences of structuralist theories and the unorthodox techniques of the New Novelists, "as it breaks down the formulas of the classic detective story into their component pieces to re-combine them in original and paradoxical ways.