By Paul Halter
First published: France, Masque, 1988
My review
One of his best-known and most popular novels, but it is thoroughly unlikeable. The first half of the story involves a series of impossible stabbings in an English village, with the culprit revealed halfway through. The second half is set in London , and throws the reader into the grisly career of Jack the Ripper. Details are so nauseating and often gratuitous that enjoyment goes by the board. The solution is simply a third use of a device which suggests that Halter may have post-modernist leanings. All in all, nasty.
