From Publishers Weekly
Japrisot ( The Sleeping Car Murders ) has set his sexy, brash novel cum murder mystery--a bestseller in France--around the time of WW II, its comic strip/slam-bang plot line and indefatigable hero drawing inspiration from the OuLiPo literary tradition, exemplified in Raymond Queneau's witty, experimental fiction of the 1940s and '50s. At the start, a man lies on a beach, shot to death after 10 years on the lam. Some facts gradually surface: while in the army, the protagonist was convicted of rape and murder, but miraculously escaped from a military citadel and has since been chased around the globe by his nemesis, a military officer who loved the murder victim. Is "Christophe"--one of the many pseudonyms adopted by this theatrical confidence man--a murderer, or was he framed? To answer the question, eight women seduced by "Christophe" relate his remarkable journeys, escapades which take him from a brothel in France to a deserted island in the South Pacific, across China and, finally, back home. "Christophe" is as artful as his lovers are dissimilar: he tailors his identity to fit the fantasies of each. Only a writer as suave as Japrisot could pair a manipulative womanizer with a series of blatantly stereotypical women--a whore with a heart of gold, an inscrutable Oriental, a sexpot movie star--and deliver such cunning, amusing fiction.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This best seller in France has enough action, excitement, and explicit sex to keep the reader turning its pages, albeit quickly, through this tale of passion and of duplicity. Eight women have as their passion the same stranger who assumes different names for each occasion. The novel begins with the stranger dying on the beach with a gunshot wound through his chest. A skillfully crafted story unfolds: the reader learns how the lover finds himself involved in the life of each new woman and why he has been shot. Lust and sexuality seem to motivate all the characters in this novel. Character development and depth of thought are sorely missed. Eventually, it becomes tiring reading.
- Anthony Caprio, Oglethorpe Univ., Atlanta
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Anthony Caprio, Oglethorpe Univ., Atlanta
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
