Therese Raquin - Emile Zola

I was expecting this to be a Madame Bovary style tale of adultery but in fact it's a study in sin and guilt like Crime and Punishment, or in the murderous pathology of a psychotic couple, like the MacBeths if they had been driven by lust rather than ambition. Which is to say, it's a bit of a bobby dazzler.

Far more explicit than any British novel of the period, Therese and Laurent's immoral behaviour is still shocking and the consequences are horrifying. Zola uses the tropes of Gothic literature - the dead returning to life, live burial, necrophilia - in a realistic setting, making for a really unsettling experience. The scene in a morgue, in particular, had me both utterly gripped and appalled at the same time. In a good way.