Tarantula by
Thierry Jonquet
pbk out November 05
(Serpent's Tail)
at £7.99
Thierry Jonquet is, in his native France, an acclaimed thriller writer of more than
twenty novels and a collection of short stories of the fantastical and cruel. This short
novel was originally published in 1995 under the title Mygale, and is apparently to be
filmed by Pedro Almodóvar, the most celebrated Spanish film director since Luis Bunuel.
It comes with some pedigree already then and is approached with curiosity.
Richard Lafargue is an eminent plastic surgeon haunted by dirty secrets. His
chateau and its setting are exquisite in their calm beauty. But his wife Eve is locked
away in her bedroom, and he normally communicates with her via full-volume loud-
speakers. He also acts as her pimp, but doesn't use her sexually himself. Lafargue also
has secret meetings with his daughter, Viviane, who is locked away in an asylum, having
been raped and driven mad.
Cutting across this erotic and bizarre storyline, are the apparently unrelated
workings of the mind of Vincent Moreau who recalls having been hunted down, and
imprisoned and starved in a cellar by someone he calls Mygale. We also learn of a petty
criminal called Alex Barny, who in robbing a bank has killed a policeman. He is a friend
of Moreau's and bemoans his disappearance. His friend would have known what to do in
the circumstances.
Of course the stories begin to intertwine, as Barny decides to find a plastic
surgeon to alter his appearance, and Moreau's own ramblings recall his sexual past.
Mygale is the French name of a tropical spider, and the characters are entangled in a
sticky web together. As the bizarre and horrific truth begins to dawn on the reader, the
evil fates of the protagonists unfolds. It is a fetishistic story that will catch out the
incautious reader who has selected it from the airport bookshop shelves on the strength of
its nude-in-chains cover. The stylish eroticism flatters to deceive, before the full horror
of what has happened in Lafargue's basement creeps insidiously into the reader's brain,
and the evil that is revenge destroys its perpetrator. Read Tarantula at a single, delicious
sitting, but sup with a long spoon.
(
Ian Morson
Author of Falconer books and short listed for 1999 Ellis Peters Historical Crime Dagger)
Tarantula by
Thierry Jonquet
