Crush

Real Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: A slow-burning intelligent thriller with a wicked twist in the tail from one of the giants of French noir fiction

Bored with her mundane factory job, her nagging mother and her alcoholic father-in-law, Louise is captivated by a glamorous American couple who move to her industrial hometown in Northern France. The Roolands' home is an island of colour, good humour and easy living in drab 1950s Léopoldville, and soon Louise is working there as a maid. But once she is under her new employers' roof their model life starts to fall apart—painful secrets from their past emerge, cracks in their relationship appear and a dark obsession begins to grow, which will end in murder...

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM show more THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Another long-afternoon read that feels so very French, and not the glamourous edge of Frenchness. We as foreigners probably don't think much about the huge bulk of France, a country that's close to the Netherlands on the north all the way to the Mediterranean in the south. It's about the size of Texas, for US readers, so very, very big and diverse.

This story takes place in the cold, rainy north, in a town of working-class folk...think Rust Belt/Great Lakes, US readers...being "invaded" by people who work for NATO, so are both foreign and educated. It's culture shock all around. This is always a chance for the chancers to move their station up...Louise, our narrator, is one who sees her chance to leave the boring beautyless trudge of her preordained life behind.

As always, the plan goes to hell once it connects with reality.

Louise is an unreliable narrator...you'll figure that out before page ten...and very much the manipulative minx. Her life was never going to be easy, but whose is? Does the twist at the end mean what its surface says it does?

You know by now Dard doesn't do wrapping-paper-and-bow endings. Go with him, pay attention to every word, and enjoy the places you'll go.

After all, you have the luxury of leaving them. show less

A bit of a page turner, the teenage heroine Louise at first seemingly hard done by may turn out to be the greedy villain. The good thing about Dard thrillers is that they are short, easy to read and gripping.

As with all good noir fiction, this tale is told in first person narrative by Louise, a 17yo French girl, unhappy with her own mundane life, envies a wealthy American couple in the area, and inserts herself into their lives. And until the final twist at the end, you are never quite sure in which direction you are being led.

As with all good noir fiction, this tale is told in first person narrative by Louise, a 17yo French girl, unhappy with her own mundane life, envies a wealthy American couple in the area, and inserts herself into their lives. And until the final twist at the end, you are never quite sure in which direction you are being led.

3.5 stars

Crush was a pleasant read for a sick day: short, with an interesting look at teenage sexual obsession and an unexpected twist at the end. There was no depth to the characters, however, which prevented it from measuring up to such French noir gems as Pascal Garnier's Moon in a Dead Eye. I also found the colloquial British translation, in which men were "blokes" who were "on the dole" and Louise called her mother "Mum" instead of "Maman," to be incredibly distracting and pedestrian, with none of the French sultriness touted on the cover.

I did admire the dual meaning of the English title, the credit for which must be given to either the translator or the publisher (who may, in this case, effectively be one and the same because show more Daniel Seton is Pushkin Press's commissioning editor), as its French title, Les scélérats, is more closely translated as "the wretches" or "the miscreants." Dard, who was apparently known for his wordplay, would be proud.

This review was based on a free ARC provided by the publisher. show less

Un piccolo noir francese, leggibile, ma certo non indimenticabile. Una coppia di americani, temporaneamente residente in Francia, assume come domestica la giovane diciassettenne, che narra in prima persona e che è la causa delle loro sciagure.