View source for She Who Was No More by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac

{{infobox1
|title=She Who Was No More
|author=Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac
|reviewer= Stephen Leach
|genre=Thrillers
|summary= A dark and devious tale about a man plotting to murder his wife. 
|rating=4
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=192
|publisher=Pushkin Vertigo
|date=November 2015
|isbn= 978-1782270812
|cover=1782270817
|aznuk=1782270817
|aznus=1782270817
}}
Everyone knows that unsettling sensation you get when you've done something bad: that clutching, unpleasant, constant feeling that every odd look or leading question thrown your way means the other person has figured out precisely what you've done. In this dark and mind-bending novella, Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac capture perfectly the unease and gradual desperation felt by Ferdinand Ravinel, a travelling salesman who enacts a plot to murder his wife Mireille with the aid of his lover, Lucienne. The tension rackets up with every paragraph, and had me scrambling to the final page.

''She Who Was No More'' is a slim read - it's not really enough time to truly get to know the characters, a fact that doesn't seem lost on Boileau-Narcejac, and facilitates part of the mystery. And despite Ravinel's actions, the writing repeatedly tricks you into feeling like he's really just the victim of his circumstance. It's a credit to the authors that the writing retained a certain wily sharpness even through translation.

And lastly, I have to mention the ending. I love a good twist, and ''She Who Was No More'' gave me not one, but two! Well worth sticking around for, and a truly excellent payoff. This was an absolute gem of a book, and I would highly recommend it.

If dark thrillers that mess with your mind are your thing, then I would recommend reading [[Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn]].

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[[Category:Pierre Boileau]]
[[Category:Thomas Narcejac]]