What's not to like in this short, fast moving, novella with a high body count, almost all at the hands of a sexy French woman. Without the shortness (90 pages), the French provincial setting, and the woman, it would not be a particularly memorable or worth reading pulpish noir.

The implicit references to Madame Bovary, like a reply of the famous agricultural fair scene, are crude and more of a minus than a plus. And then there's the phrase "Hell's bells," which oddly appears in this translation -- after marring Wilbur's translation of Don Juan.

The book wears its politics lightly, showing rather than telling the attitude towards the local provincial elite. And ultimately, their fate speaks for itself.