This unconventional and deeply chilling novel, translated by Sam Taylor, gives away the ending in its opening sentences. Louise, a quiet, dutiful nanny, enters the home of French-Moroccan lawyer, Myriam and her husband Paul in Paris and by the end murders the two children in her charge. What fills the pages in between is a slow, breathtaking unraveling of the bonds of race, class and family in modern-day Paris that Slïmani achieves with staggering skill.

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