The Devil’s Daughter might not be totally conventional noir fiction but it does definitely qualify as slightly unconventional noir. And while the central character isn’t quite a straightforward femme fatale she certainly has affinities with that sisterhood.
Michel Perry runs the Ecuador, the swankiest night club in New York. A striking woman has suddenly turned up there and that interests and disturbs Perry for three reasons. Firstly, the woman is not only beautiful and classy, she’s exactly Michel’s type (and Michel takes a particular interest in the female of the species). Secondly, he doesn’t know who she is, and Michel likes to know all about all the people who frequent the Ecuador. And thirdly, he has this nagging feeling that he knows her from somewhere but for the life of him he can’t figure out where he might have met her.
Michel is a respectable businessman but with a shady past. He had been part of the organisation of gangster Joe Buonarotti. Buonarotti’s gang turned against him and rubbed him out. Now Michel suspects that someone is killing off the members of that gang one by one. He fears he will be on the list.
The woman calls herself Laura. Laura has a past as well. Michel slowly comes to realise her true identity although it seems impossible. Laura does look a bit like a woman he knew as Maria, but she doesn’t look exactly like Maria.
Laura’s past begins with a Sicilian girl being brought to America by her uncle who has lined up a husband for her. She marries someone else instead. A gangster named Joe Buonarotti.
Michel and Laura begin an affair. She adopts the rôle of Scheherazade, the story-teller in the Arabian Nights. She tells stories of murder, but Michel has to wait until the following night to hear the end of the stories.
Michel fears that Laura intends to kill him, but he’s not sure. He’s also not sure if those tales she tells are true. There isn’t much supporting evidence.
The basic plot is pretty good but Marsh adds a few wrinkles that make it even more interesting. There are the doubts about whether Laura really is a killer or not. If she is a killer it’s possible but by no means certain that she intends to kill Michel. He’s not sure about this, and the reader is not sure either. It’s likely that Laura herself can’t answer that question. The relationship between Michel and Laura is complicated and it changes over time. The reader will easily be able to imagine a number of ways the plot could resolve, without having an idea which resolution will turn out to be the correct one.
And there are a few more twists at the end.
Laura may be a serial murderess. She resembles a femme fatale in that she’s beautiful, sexy and possibly dangerous but she’s not really a classic femme fatale. Femmes fatales manipulate rather than act directly. Her motivations are not those of a classic femme fatale. She is closer in spirit to the female revenge heroine who would became such a feature of pop culture in the 70s - Raquel Welch in Hannie Caulder, Camille Keaton in I Spit On Your Grave, Christina Lindberg in Thriller: A Cruel Picture and especially Soledad Miranda in Jess Franco’s She Killed in Ecstasy. Laura however is more complex. We’re not at all sure that her actions are justified, assuming she is a killer.
This is a story of love and lust, of hate, of revenge and of suspicion and betrayal.
The main narrative is third person and mostly told from Michel’s point of view but Laura’s stories take the form of extended flashbacks from her point in view with first-person narration. We’re left in doubt as to whether Michel or Laura is the noir protagonist here.
It’s a complex tale and it’s unfolded with a good deal of skill. There’s suspense and there’s emotional nuance and there’s plenty of ambiguity. There’s more than enough here to qualify this novel as noir fiction.
And very good noir fiction. Highly recommended.
No comments:
Post a Comment