This year I promised myself a read through of the entire Pushkin Vertigo series, starting out with SHE WHO WAS NO MORE by Pierre Boileau and Pierre Ayraud (aka Thomas Narcejac), originally published in 1952. Collaborating as they did on mainly police stories I found the idea that Boilea was responsible for the plot and Narcejac the atmosphere and characters particularly intriguing. Both of which aspects really delivered in this novel - the story of an unfaithful husband, his ambitious doctor lover Lucienne, and his passive, stay at home wife Mireille. Lucience and Fernard Ravinel conspire to, and ultimately drown Mireille in the bath, transporting her body a long distance back to the Ravinel home by car to leave it to be discovered in a way that would indicate accidental death.

Only the body, carefully laid out by Ravinel, disappears before any such discovery can be made, and sightings of his dead wife (his lover is a doctor after all - surely she can recognise death when she sees it) start to reveal themselves, leaving Ravinel unraveling - his plot and his sanity.

Atmospheric, restrained and deeply dark noir, SHE WHO WAS NO MORE was utterly compelling reading. Carefully plotted there's little that can be said about that aspect without giving away a lot (and to be honest, astute readers may pick up on a series of clues along the way), but more's to the point with this book, it's the unraveling of Ravinel that's the most fascinating aspect. That and the wonderful combination of dark, rundown, almost seedy locations, the contrasts between foggy landscapes and thinking, and the almost visual aspects of the characterisations. You can clearly see expressions, thoughts and confusion on faces. You can feel the rooms they move through, the places they are in, the air that they are breathing. It's utterly mesmerising and you can see why there are multiple movies made of this story, and why the earlier of those (The Devils) is said to have inspired Psycho.

Another one of those reading quests that I wish I could devote more time to - the second book on my pile from the same series is I WAS JACK MORTIMER by Alexander Lernet-Holenia. It's only going to need to be half as good to make me very pleased with this decision and desperate to find the time to read more from their fabulous set of books.


https://www.austcrimefiction.org/review/she-who-was-no-more-pierre-boileau-and-thomas-narcejac

A study of evil...

Fernand Ravinel is a travelling salesman, often away from the home he shares with his wife, Mireille. This makes it easy for him to spend time with his lover, Lucienne. But, in time, the pair decide this isn't enough – that Mireille has to be got rid of. And so they set out to murder her. Their plot at first looks like it's going to be successful, but then a strange thing happens, and gradually everything starts to go wrong... and as it does so, Fernand's mind begins to unravel.

This book comes with a request from the authors for readers to tell nothing about the plot so as not to spoil it for other readers, so I've restricted my little introduction to slightly less than is given in the publisher's blurb. In essence, the book concentrates on Ravinel's state of mind, showing how guilt and remorse soon knock him off his emotional balance, sending him on a spiral into delusion, depression and finally threatening even his sanity. But there's also a mystery element that stops this being a simple character study – something strange is happening and, while Ravinel in his delusional state is willing to consider a supernatural element, the reader is left looking for a rational explanation.

Unsurprisingly in a man who is plotting to murder his wife, Ravinel is not a sympathetic character. He's self-obsessed, rather cold emotionally, seeming unable to truly love either of the women in his life, and he's something of a hypochondriac. But although this makes it pretty much impossible to empathise with him, it still leaves him as a fascinating subject for a character study. Boileau-Narcejac use his weaknesses and character flaws brilliantly to create a compelling picture of a man driven to the edge of insanity. They are the authors who wrote Vertigo on which the Hitchcock film is based, and there are some similarities between the books. Both blur the line between villain and victim, concentrating on the effects on the central character's mind as he is drawn into a plot that spirals out of his control, and both veer close to mild horror novel territory as he gradually loses his grip on reality. And both are dark, indeed.

For me, this one isn't quite as strong as Vertigo. Mainly, this is because the solution seems pretty obvious from fairly early on which takes away some of the suspense. It still leaves it an intriguing and enjoyable read though, partly because it's so well written and partly because it's less clear how the story will be allowed to play out. As strange events lead Ravinel to become more disturbed, there's a truly chilling effect – it's easy to understand why he is so badly affected by them. Both the Boileau-Narcejac books I've read have been fundamentally about evil, but they seem to see weakness of character as an integral part of that evil, so that the books are less about the incidents and more about the psychological impact they have on the perpetrator.

I trust I've been vague enough to suit the authors and if you're now wondering what on earth this review is going on about, I can only suggest you read the book! It has also been made into a film more than once, but the consensus seems to favour the 1955 Clouzot version, Les Diaboliques, which I am now looking forward to watching... 4½ stars for me, so rounded up.

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