A New York Review Books Original
Whether you call her a coldhearted grifter or the soul of modern capitalism, for which nothing on heaven or earth has any value except its value in cash, there's no question that Aimée is a
killer and a more than professional one. Now she's set her eyes on a backwater burg-where, while posing as an innocent (albeit drop-dead gorgeous) newcomer to town, she means to sniff out old
grudges and engineer new opportunities, deftly playing different people and different interests against each other the better to, as always, make a killing. But then something snaps: the master
manipulator falls prey to a pure and wayward passion.
Aimée has become the avenging angel of her own nihilism, exacting the destruction of a whole society of destroyers. An unholy original, J.P. Manchette transformed the modern detective novel
into a weapon of gleeful satire and anarchic fun. In Fatale he mixes equal measures of farce, mayhem, and madness to prepare a rare literary cocktail that packs a devastating punch.
