Tarantula is a novel by Thierry Jonquet. It was recently adapated into the film The Skin I Live In, which I have yet to see.

Plot:
Richard Lafargue is a renowned plastic surgeon with a secret: He keeps his girlfriend Eve locked up in the upper floor of his house, controlling her life completely and revelling in seeing her suffering. Eve endures this treatment mostly stoically, even when Richard prostitutes her. Richard always gets especially vicious towards Eve after visiting his daughter Viviane who stays at a psychiatric facility.
At the same time the thug Alex is looking for an escape after a bank robbery that went a bit wrong.

The book is rather short and it shouldn’t have been any longer, either. But as short as it was, it was a very good read.

[MAJOR SPOILERS]

I guessed about 50% of the great reveal at about page 20 – I knew that Eve would turn out to be Vincent, Alex’ missing friend and I knew how Alex would come together with Lafargue. I just didn’t know how Viviane would figure into all of this – and I did not expect that Eve would stay with Richard. [Though it does fit – Vincent probably wouldn’t have stayed with Richard, but Eve is entirely his creature.]

I thought that the style of the book was a little weird but that could have been the translation as much as the original writing. In any case it’s not bad, it’s just a little unusual and takes a bit of getting used to. But especially the bits from Vincent/Eve’s point of view worked very well for me, the content as much as the style.

The book made me very curious about the movie – which sounds quite different, though. Looking forward to it.

Summarising: an interesting look at a rather unbalanced relationship.