And why does Neith’s instinct rebel? It is so obviously true, so reassuringly mundane: a madwoman kills in the pursuit of her obsession. It is an ordinary story, tragic and a little ironic, but it obeys Occam’s razor, requires no multiplication of entities. Perhaps that’s the problem: it is so neat, so narratively elegant, and Hunter and Smith and all their cohorts are masters of persuasive lies.
