Eve was the downfall of Adam when she, at the behest of the serpent, cajoled him into eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. In James Hadley Chase’s 1945 thriller, “Eve,” Clive Thurston blames his downfall on a tart, a call girl, named Eve, who somehow bewitched him, although she is indifferent and cold to him. This novel is a walk through the life of a man plagued by guilt and feelings of unworthiness because his playwriting and Hollywood screenwriting is all based on a play he stole from the home of a writer-friend who conveniently had a heart attack. Despite having risen to fame and brief fortune, Thurston lives in fear that he will one day be found out as a fraud and a thief and cannot for the life of him write another successful work. This guilt and shame ties in with his obsession with Eve. Although this story is yet another one about an insider’s view of Hollywood, it is unlike most Hollywood soap operas and it is about obsession and guilt and paranoia. Is Clive Thurston just some scurrilous rat? Is he being an honest narrator or is he even more horrible than he admits? How did the writer end up conveniently having a heart attack? Was Eve really this beguiling evil woman or was Thurston a mad stalker who simply wouldn’t leave her alone? Was Thurston simply powerless to resist her or was he a heartless womanizer? Were the head of major studios out to get him or was he just another failed writer who blamed his lack of success on others? There is something compelling about the way Chase presents this story through the eyes of Thurston, a cheat, a fraud, a cad. ( )