The woman is so emphatic in admitting her crime that the police suspect she might be hiding something else. The year is 1947. Makine retraces the events that lead to the tragic day. With time, the love between mother and son takes a disturbing turn. Makine digs into the deepest recesses of human psyche, and Olga is portrayed as a tormented soul.
Guilt is a dark angel.
A crime novel, it is also a warped love story, with morbidity and sexuality inseparable. It is a novel at once moving, seductive, creepy, sad and provocative. Boundaries blurred The boundaries between dream and reality, past and present, are not always clearly established. Every novel is a game of hide and seek with the reader,'' said the late Russian author Andrei Bely, and Makine plays that game to the fullest, without the gratuitous manipulation hack writers indulge in. Makine possesses the breadth of a major writer and is not afraid of lyricism, though at times the 19th centurylike romanticism exhibited comes perilously close to melodrama.