The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun

i remember reading this many years ago and really liking it, but I couldn't remember a thing about the plot. So I read it again. It hasn't aged very well. Maybe because there have been so many other stories written now about people who don't know whether or not they are going insane. The pacing is slow. It also felt oddly misogynistic. The main character, Dany, has a lot of self-contempt and is treated poorly by most of the people in the story. It is told in first person, in Dany's POV. A snippet is told in third person, from a side character's POV. The whole last quarter is almost entirely exposition, first person again but in another character's POV. As a reader, I always find a mix of first and third kind of annoying.

Despite these show more things, I was still interested enough to finish the novel. The nightmarish quality of the narrative as Dany encounters one impossible situation after another and starts to question her sanity--all that is done well. You do have to suspend your disbelief a bit, as Dany makes some pretty questionable choices, but overall an interesting example of what has become almost a trope. show less

I was reading an interview with George R. R. Martin (author of the "Game of Thrones" series) and he said that "The Lady in the Car, etc." was one of the best books he ever read, but, frankly, I don't agree - not at all - there is nothing that distinguishes this book from dozens of others I have read in he same vein - a mystery the conclusion of which is not discernable from the first 3/4ths of the book and which, disconcertingly, is knowable only at the end when one of the characters goes on a pages long confession/description of how he contrived, planned and executed the plot which, I thought, was a cheap and easy way out of the story - as opposed, say, to having the heroine determine the outcome through investigation and thought, but show more no, instead we get a pages long confession which, I thought, was a cheap and easy way out of having to think through a more nuanced conclusion. I would skip this one if I were you. Later. show less

Genuinely puzzling mystery which resolves nicely (feels for a while like it's going to be a disappointing "she's mad"). Some of it a bit clichéd 1960s France---libertine sex, Catholic guilt, etc etc. Suppose clichés have to come from somewhere. Verges on rapey now and again. Writing manages shifts of voice without being jarring, though protagonist can grate a little.

I read this book because it was on Ken Follet's of favorite books. It is old school noir. Not like The Thin Man with witty dialogue, but more like James Cain or Jim Thompson. The main character Dany is in a situation where she is not sure if she is coming unhinged or being conned. No spoilers so you will have to read it to find out who put the body in the trunk.

absolutely ridiculous!

This French psychological thriller from 1966 is a brilliant and twisting novel, as a secretary takes her bosses car for a jaunt and gets into a nightmare. Read my full review here: http://shinynewbooks.co.uk/the-lady-in-the-car-with-glasses-and-a-gun-by-sebasti...

You’re not paranoid if they really are out to get you….