La Femme riche

by Patrick Besson

93pages. poche. Poche.

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

Reviews

[Carlmaria · Rating 4 out of 5]

The third way between crime novels and literature, paved by authors of noir fiction, James Ellroy, Horace McCoy, has become literarily-correct with Capote and Auster (the trilogy) etc. or Echenoz among others in France. In 1993, Bret Easton Ellis broke a leg with his wacko pretty boy banker. That same year in France, Patrick Besson, a novelist of the dignified literary kind, decided to put the same costume on; the list of available outfits for heroes had just increased: cop, graduate, wicked banker. Patrick Besson has everything I like about Echenoz, the irony, the flow, without Echenoz's delicacy which bores me to tears. Echenoz tries too hard to shine as a good guy, while no reader, past the ex-plicit, will ever nod and say "he's such a good guy". Readers will have opened their window to scream long before. Besson's banker is obsessed with women. It's such an exhausting vocation; in order to unwind he has to kill a few. When offered to get paid for his pastime, he hastily accepts and lunches his planned grey-eyed victim on the Champs-Elysees. He promises to make her suffer. A lot. But how? And why does his employer also have grey eyes? The Rich Lady amuses, disturbs and surrenders to the reader in less than two hours.