She Who Was No More (13 page)

Did you know?

The prolific, multi-award winning duo of Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac wrote dozens of thrillers together, subverting the mechanics of traditional mystery and focusing on unsentimental characters, tension and shocking plot twists. Forsaking the logical investigations typical of pre-war detective fiction, they focused on created disorienting worlds where, as they put it, ‘man is out of place’. For a thriller to really hold the reader under its spell, they argued, it must be less about ‘who’ and ‘why’ and more about ‘how’.

While few English readers know their names, their impact on crime fiction and cinema, in particular, has been considerable. Their novels inspired two of the greatest, and possibly most influential crime films ever made;
Les Diaboliques
, based on
She Who Was No More
, adapted and directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot in 1955, and
Vertigo
, directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1958.

Clouzot changed several key details for his version of the story—the victim of the murder plot is not the seemingly innocent wife, as in the book, but a tyrannical husband who probably had it coming. Still, the authors praised this liberal adaptation, which they say brought to life in images what they meant to convey in words.

The film version ended with a request to the audience to keep the details of the plot secret, so as not to spoil others’ enjoyment of the film, as did the first British edition of the book. We’d like to repeat it here:

This amazing novel is a story of suspense and terror so perfectly constructed that not even a hint of the plot can be given away. The publishers respectfully request early readers to resist the temptation to reveal it.

If you’ve not already read it, you really should give Boileau-Narcejac’s
Vertigo
a try—another disorienting and heart-stoppingly tense masterpiece.

But if you feel like putting those little grey cells to work on a more traditional murder, Piero Chiara’s
The Disappearance of Signora Giulia
could be the book for you—a classic mystery from one of the most celebrated Italian writers of the post-war period.

Augusto De Angelis

The Murdered Banker

The Mystery of the Three Orchids

The Hotel of the Three Roses

Boileau-Narcejac

Vertigo

She Who Was No More

Piero Chiara

The Disappearance of Signora Giulia

Martin Holmén

Clinch

Alexander Lernet-Holenia

I Was Jack Mortimer

Leo Perutz

Master of the Day of Judgment

Little Apple

St Peter’s Snow

Soji Shimada

The Tokyo Zodiac Murders

Pushkin Press was founded in 1997, and publishes novels, essays, memoirs, children’s books—everything from timeless classics to the urgent and contemporary.

Our books represent exciting, high-quality writing from around the world: we publish some of the twentieth century’s most widely acclaimed, brilliant authors such as Stefan Zweig, Marcel Aymé, Antal Szerb, Paul Morand and Yasushi Inoue, as well as compelling and award-winning contemporary writers, including Andrés Neuman, Edith Pearlman and Ryu Murakami.

Pushkin Press publishes the world’s best stories, to be read and read again. Here are just some of the titles from our long and varied list. For more amazing stories, visit
www.pushkinpress.com
.

THE SPECTRE OF ALEXANDER WOLF

GAITO GAZDANOV

‘A mesmerising work of literature’ Antony Beevor

BINOCULAR VISION

EDITH PEARLMAN

‘A genius of the short story’ Mark Lawson,
Guardian

TRAVELLER OF THE CENTURY

ANDRÉS NEUMAN

‘A beautiful, accomplished novel: as ambitious as it is generous, as moving as it is smart’ Juan Gabriel Vásquez,
Guardian

BEWARE OF PITY

STEFAN ZWEIG

‘Zweig’s fictional masterpiece’
Guardian

THE WORLD OF YESTERDAY

STEFAN ZWEIG

‘
The World of Yesterday
is one of the greatest memoirs of the twentieth century, as perfect in its evocation of the world Zweig loved, as it is in its portrayal of how that world was destroyed’ David Hare

JOURNEY BY MOONLIGHT

ANTAL SZERB

‘Just divine… makes you imagine the author has had private access to your own soul’ Nicholas Lezard,
Guardian

BONITA AVENUE

PETER BUWALDA

‘One wild ride: a swirling helix of a family saga… a new writer as toe-curling as early Roth, as roomy as Franzen and as caustic as Houellebecq’
Sunday Telegraph

THE PARROTS

FILIPPO BOLOGNA

‘A five-star satire on literary vanity… a wonderful, surprising novel’
Metro

I WAS JACK MORTIMER

ALEXANDER LERNET-HOLENIA

‘Terrific… a truly clever, rather wonderful book that both plays with and defies genre’ Eileen Battersby,
Irish Times

SONG FOR AN APPROACHING STORM

PETER FRÖBERG IDLING

‘Beautifully evocative… a must-read novel’
Daily Mail

THE RABBIT BACK LITERATURE SOCIETY

PASI ILMARI JÄÄSKELÄINEN

‘Wonderfully knotty… a very grown-up fantasy masquerading as quirky fable. Unexpected, thrilling and absurd’
Sunday Telegraph

RED LOVE: THE STORY OF AN EAST GERMAN FAMILY

MAXIM LEO

‘Beautiful and supremely touching… an unbearably poignant description of a world that no longer exists’
Sunday Telegraph

THE BREAK

PIETRO GROSSI

‘Small and perfectly formed… reaching its end leaves the reader desirous to start all over again’
Independent

FROM THE FATHERLAND, WITH LOVE

RYU MURAKAMI

‘If Haruki is
The Beatles
of Japanese literature, Ryu is its
Rolling Stones’
David Pilling

BUTTERFLIES IN NOVEMBER

AUÐUR AVA ÓLAFSDÓTTIR

‘A funny, moving and occasionally bizarre exploration of life’s upheavals and reversals’
Financial Times

BARCELONA SHADOWS

MARC PASTOR

‘As gruesome as it is gripping… the writing is extraordinarily vivid… Highly recommended’
Independent

THE LAST DAYS

LAURENT SEKSIK

‘Mesmerising… Seksik’s portrait of Zweig’s final months is dignified and tender’
Financial Times

BY BLOOD

ELLEN ULLMAN

‘Delicious and intriguing’
Daily Telegraph

WHILE THE GODS WERE SLEEPING

ERWIN MORTIER

‘A monumental, phenomenal book’
De Morgen

THE BRETHREN

ROBERT MERLE

‘A master of the historical novel’
Guardian