The woman at the center of this story has definitely take a page from Hammett's Continental Op in her manipulation of a whole town. Engrossing from start to finish, with great action scenes, dialogue, and a nihilistic world view that is actually quite refreshing. Really a novelette, which is the perfect length for Manchette's near-perfect story. This is my third Manchette book and he has to be near the top of noir writers. Those who are trying to read this like they would an Agatha Christive novel--or even one by Dashiell Hammett are missing the point entirely. If you are fed up with the way the world works, read this--or any of his other works you come across. ( )

I never thought I’d be rooting for a killer-for-hire woman--and a psychopathic one at that--but, the beautiful, sexy Aimee is one of those unforgettable characters who’s very rare in noir fiction. I’ve never read anything quite like this brilliant novella. The writing is tight and it flies by. I couldn’t put it down.
The best line was delivered by the baron when he was showing Aimee around his home.

“My bedroom,” he said. “I’m not going to invite you in there to copulate; we are not well enough acquainted for that.”

If you are a fan of crime fiction in the James M. Cain tradition, this one's for you.
And, what a fantastic cover on the paperback edition!
( )

Another Manchette and good enough for me to keep going, but a bit obvious for all that. This one sees Aimee as a serial trouble maker / killer. Beautiful and trained (by herself) to kill and master of disguise! She arrives in a new town and figures out a way to stir things up and then collects money for some rich old bag and then kills him. Why? hmm... because rich old men are pretty bad, I guess- but I am not sure. She arrives in Bleville and turns up the heat on a bunch of corruption and baddies but flirts with a cranky malcontent. Eventually she needs to kill him too (though she is conflicted about it) before getting into a rather comic scene ala High Noon (but it is dark and late at night at the quay) where she has to masterfully kill a bunch of .. you guessed it- old wind bags! Must have been 8 of them? and yes, she does it in memorably gruesome ways, so Tarantino ought to be in on this one. Still- pretty entertaining. ( )

Nice little French roman noir novella that's really a sort of leftist political statement. ( )

Aimee Joubert began her life as a murderess by killing her husband, and since then she has killed half a dozen other men, always for monetary gain for herself. Now she has arrived at the town of Bleville to scope out her next crime, which begins with her insinuating herself into the lives of the town's elite citizens. By the end of the book, there are a lot of newly dead people in Bleville.

This is a NYRB book, and it is described as classic noir, and I fully anticipated liking it a lot. (I like what I've read of Jim Thompson and James Cain.) But I did not. I found it crude, in the sense of rough and unfinished. There was no elegance in the plotting of the crimes, and Aimee projects merely a sense of ennui and nihilism, as if she is merely letting things happen, rather than causing them. I had another book by Manchette out of the library, but I sent it back unread. I doubt this is an author I'll try again.

2 stars ( )