She Who Was No More

A couple's murderous plot goes horribly awry in this French noir classic that later inspired the Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece Psycho

Every Saturday evening, travelling salesman Ferdinand Ravinel returns to his wife, Mireille, who waits patiently for him at home. But Ferdinand has another lover, Lucienne—an ambitious doctor—and together the adulterers have devised a murderous plan.

Drugging Mireille, the pair drown her in a bathtub. But before the "accidental" death can be discovered, the corpse mysteriously disappears. So begins the unraveling of Ferdinand's plot, and his sanity.

This classic of French noir fiction was adapted for the screen by Henri-Georges Clouzot as Les Diaboliques (The Devils), starring Simone Signoret and Véra Clouzot, the film which in turn inspired Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. A second movie version, Diabolique, followed in 1996, starring Sharon Stone.

Pierre Boileau (1906-89) and Thomas Narcejac (1908-98) are two of the most celebrated names in French crime fiction. Together, they collaborated on more than forty thrillers. Their most notable works are Vertigo and She Who Was No More, which were turned into classics of noir cinema by Alfred Hitchcock and Henri-Georges Clouzot respectively.