This study examines how the French bestselling detective novel Total Khéops (1995) by Jean-Claude Izzo relates to three literary sub-genres of detective fiction to which it mainly has been associated since it first was published: roman noir français (French roman noir), polar marseillais and Mediterranean noir. By assembling the most significant criterions of these sub-genres and analyzing their presence in Total Khéops, or its architextuality within the crime novel, this approach aims to reveal in what sub-genre this novel mainly should be categorized. The results of the study show that Total Khéops exhibits central features of all the three sub-genres, but as the findings overlap, and that several characteristic traits are possible to associate with more than one of these categories, it’s difficult to judge to which sub-genre this novel mainly belongs. However, the study indicates that the focus on the elements of place and local culture of the city of Marseille in Total Khéops sets a new standard in the way the polar marseillais was to develop to a proper sub-genre in the late 1990s: these features are to be considered as new in the domain of French crime fiction.