Killing Me Softly
With a new introduction by Peter Robinson
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- €1.99
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- €1.99
Publisher Description
Killing Me Softly, by the acclaimed and Sunday Times bestselling author Nicci French, is a terrifying journey into the heart of obsession . . .
'Nicci French's sophisticated, compassionate and gripping crime novels stand head and shoulders above the competition' Sophie Hannah
***
You have everything. But you give it up for an affair.
You're in passionate love. And grave danger...
Alice Loudon couldn't resist abandoning her old, safe life for a wild affair. And in Adam Tallis, a rugged mountaineer with a murky past, she finds a man who can teach her things about herself that she never even suspected.
But sexual obsession has its dark side - and so does Adam. Soon both are threatening all that Alice has left. First her sanity. Then her life.
***
Praise for Nicci French:
'French leads the field' Sunday Express
'Brilliantly crafted . . . masterly control of suspense' Daily Mirror
'Tense, frightening, gripping' Easy Living
'Dark, nerve-tingling and addictive' Daily Express
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A critically acclaimed, bestselling British author (The Memory Game), French makes her American debut with a stunning novel of sexual obsession. Alice Loudon has a wonderful boyfriend, Jake; a nice apartment in London; good friends; and a satisfying job as a research manager in a pharmaceutical company. On her way to work one morning, she locks eyes with a handsome man dressed in black, and cannot get him out of her mind. Later that day, she finds him waiting for her and she plunges into an affair of such intensity that she leaves Jake, neglects her friends and her health and even puts herself in great danger. "Sex had never been like this. There had been indifferent sex, embarrassing sex, nasty sex, good sex, great sex. This was more like obliterating sex." Alice's new lover, Adam Tallis, is a mountain climber and a hero. Guiding an ill-fated expedition to the top of a Himalayan mountain, he risked his life to save over half the climbers (although five people died). He seems perfect, but he reveals little about himself; he never laughs; and sometimes he inflicts physical pain on Alice during sex. Despite the shocking revelations of a woman who claims to be his former lover, Alice marries Adam. Soon she cannot ignore other frightening signals: mysteriously threatening notes and incessant phone calls from someone who never speaks. After she meets several more women from Adam's past, she pieces together his secrets, and sees his overwhelming love for her in a more sinister light. With lucid and limber prose, French delves into Alice's thoughts as skillfully as she describes the London setting. The pacing is swift and the dialogue sharp and realistic. The story's thematic device is a cleverly imagined redoubling: the physical and psychic risks of mountain climbing parallel Alice's journey towards a perilous sexual summit. "It had begun in rapture and finished in terror,'' reads a line near the end of the narrative. Every decade or so a psychological thriller appears that graphically recounts an intelligent woman's willing sexual subjugation; this gripping novel joins that group. Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club and Mystery Guild featured alternates; film rights to Montecito Picture Company.
