Stéphane Réal
Stéphane Réal wrote twelve novels, 7,200 lists, and sixteen manuals on various topics, including swimming, hunting for truffles, and orchid planting. His last book, Two Minutes, condenses the entire seedy French colonial history of an unnamed African country into the time it takes an assassin to gun down the protagonist, a mystery writer, also named Stéphane Réal. The clues to his death are found in the mystery Stéphane Réal is writing, but he never finishes it because he dies. Coincidentally, Stéphane Réal (the real one) also died before finishing his mystery. Maybe he should have written about winning the lottery.
