*Bitten by the Tarantula by J. McLaren-Ross (Allan Wingate (1946)

 

A smart, dark, entertaining novel set in the south of France in 1930.  Two men leave the heat of Nice in August and take refuge at a friend's mountain chalet, which is also occupied by several paying guests: a French family and a Russian emigre widow and her young daughter.  The narrator, Christopher, who is British, and whose almost-fiancee Yvonne is vacationing at another house party elsewhere, begins an affair with the Russian.  Meanwhile, the cook and the servant, two young men who are both sleeping with the eccentric morphine-addicted (male) owner of the chalet, fight, and the servant is replaced by the owner's ornery ward, whose fortune he has gambled away.  Christopher leaves and later hears that Michel (the ward) has run off with Madame Mollinov (the Russian) and has subsequently murdered her.  Meanwhile, Spider (the owner) has sold the chalet to the French family and moved to Cannes where he encounters Christopher, who is seeking a divorce from Yvonne.  A nasty business all around, succinctly related in very short chapters with a deadpan wit and noirish toughness.  Spider's homosexuality is accepted by all, and it seems homosexuals are prevalent and visible in this world.  Madame Mollinov mistakes Christopher and his friend Armstrong for queers, since they are traveling together.  A fun, bright, quick, read.