Qualificada millor novel·la policíaca de França del 1962, no m'estranya mica. Tot encaixa com una maquinària de rellotgeria i manté el misteri fins al final (i més enllà). Si, a més, la traducció al català és de Manuel de Pedrolo, no es pot demanar més. ( )

I RECEIVED THIS DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
STRONG CONTENT WARNING FOR ENCAVMAPHOBIA

My Review: As ever with this author, do not expect the usual, simple setting down of sentences to form beautiful images and sanguine characters, but the unsettling reversals of point of view and the sheer variety of events as told by people with different viewpoints.

Even when those people are in the same body. And no, there are no external markers of the changes. You have to work for your pleasures!

Pleasures there are, and aplenty, in this twisty tale of utterly unreliable narrators. Mi, Michèle, or Do, Domenica, or whoever she might be, is unreliable because her trauma...caught in a fire, either the perpetrartix or the intended victim of it, makes little difference after simply being trapped in a fire...has robbed her of her memory. Those around her are, to put it mildly, motivated by pecuniary gain and thus aren't entirely to be trusted. The doctor is no help to her in recovering her true self. But the more questions the narrator asks, the more she realizes that it's very, very possible that she simply does not want the answers to those questions.

What's wrong with simply...existing. Allowing the tidal wave of love and sympathy to sustain her. Whether or not she "deserves" it.

The concept of merit, of being worthy, of having one's just deserts, is a huge issue in this story. While there is no way that such a tale would be possible in the twenty-first century, when a simple DNA test would establish instantly and once and for all who she was, the way the plastic surgeon worked miracles for her is the primary obstacle to believability in this psychological horror story. I have seen a truly badly burned person and let me assure you they would not be passable in social settings. For the amnesia plot to work, however, there is a need to suspend this level of disbelief.

The sense of dread, of not knowing where one is in the life one is living, is a palpable horror. The idea of surviving a fire is traumatic enough...but to then realize that everyone around one is lying by omission, or directly...? How can that possibly be anything but a waking nightmare?

It is at this Rebecca-meets-Gaslight level that the book works best. Let go of the practical knowledge you possess as a 21st-century reader and travel back to 1963 (when the book first appeared in French) to allow this fearsome reality to submerge your sense of the firmess of your own foundations. Be there with Michèle...Domenica...whatever her name is.

Be there. That might very well be the epitaph of each of the people who die in this book, especially the ones sentenced to prison for crimes they might have, or did, commit. The crimes that, in the end, meant nothing...caused nothing that had not already happened. And isn't that just the awful way of crime? It's really, in the end, pointless.

Agonizing pain for pointless goals. How very, very noir. ( )

What is really the mystery here is an existential one: what is truth, and what is identity? No character is completely blameless or completely culpable. The narrator says, "I was the detective, the murderer, the victim, and the witness, all at once," which is an accurate statement no matter who she really is. ( )

That was one wild noir thriller ride! By the end of the book, you think you know what happened but you are not one hundred percent sure. The story, although ridiculously improbable, was nonetheless well constructed from a mystery point-of-view. Between all the twists and turns and interesting personalities, one scenario seems as plausible as another. By the end, your mind is spinning but it's fun, like a carnival ride! ( )

Brilliant and Fun. I found the story to be thought provoking. Such a simple book, a quick read and brilliantly told! I would love to know what I would have thought about this book if I had read it at this same age but 40 years ago!! I will read this again some day! I loved it! ( )