Trap for Cinderella

Japrisot takes the mystery/thriller genre to another dimension. There aren't just plot twists, reading one of his stories is like taking a roller coaster ride with hairpin bends. You're never really sure what the answer is, and yet if you pay attention, maybe you are. When you think you've found an answer, it opens up more questions, revealing levels of complexity most writers never approach. What I particularly like is, he doesnt use exotic and high-flying settings like english manor houses, international espionage, the world of high finance, etc. Like that American genius Rod Serling, Japrisot's plots happen to ordinary people, a salesperson, a bank teller, a truck driver, a farmer. If his books dont hold your attention nothing will. Also the translations have been dynamite and lose nothing. When I run out of his books that have been put into English, I already am stacking up the ones only available in French. Everyone of the four I have read have been masterpieces.

Read this book many years ago, but the eerie plot has stayed with me. Now reading "Talented Mr. Ripley" by Patricia Highsmith and the similarities in the protagonists are striking. Both are poor and young and long for somebody else's life. Envy is their driving motivation. Dominic (?), the poor girl in "Trap for Cinderella," insinuates herself into the life of her rich cousin, Michelle. (May have some of this wrong; it has been years.) Michelle casually allows Dominic to become her syncophant, just as Tom Ripley becomes a leach on Dickie Greenleaf's life in "Talented." Still not sure who survives in the end of "Trap." Think it was not the leach. Wish I had a copy to read again. One of the best mystery/suspense novels I've ever read.

A Trap for Cinderella is a masterpiece of fiction. It is the story of a young woman who has lost her identity and continues to lose it as she finds herself deeper and deeper in a morass of passion, greed, bitterness, and sexuality. Each way she turns, she finds a new persona for herself, and new victims. Each shadowy profile she sees of herself is obliterated: she is beautiful, but hated; she is loved, and despised; she is rich, but poor. And she is a gentle human being who may also be a murderer. In the end, the relief comes not from finding out who is murdered and who has committed the crime, but from the simple act of knowing the truth, however shocking and ugly it may be.This is a short book, but spare and beautiful. I recommend it.

read this years ago and am thrilled to find it again. i remember that the translation from the french was horribly mangled, but the story was so good, it overcame. would make an excellent movie. (talented mr. ripley is kinda similar concept). i even think that a better translation would take away from some of its charm :)

It's an excellent novel that transgresses the limitations of the detective genre. Unfortunately, the translation is not very good. It inexplicably removes the opening part of the story, and this reduces the book's charm.