Tyvian Jones es un escritor residente en Venecia que atraviesa una etapa brillante. Justo acaba de publicar un libro que se ha convertido en un auténtico éxito y, consecuentemente, se está negociando su correspondiente adaptación cinematográfica. Su nombre está al alza, todo el mundo lo tiene en boca, se celebran fiestas y recepciones en su honor, apenas si puede parar en casa. Un día conoce a la bellísima Eva, una mujer que le hará perder el juicio y dudar de su compromiso con Francesca. Eva es una mujer fría y calculadora, magnética, cruel y vengativa, no es la clase de mujer que más le convenga, ni que le haga falta, pero Tyvian no podrá ignorar esa fiera y visceral atracción.

The book begins with Clive reminiscing his past and his encounter with Eve and the impact it has had on his life and everything he ever had, as he writes a book.

Two years before, Shipping Clerk Clive Thurston is met with ailing writer John Coulson, who is given company at Clive's apartment. Coulson has written a play and wants to publish it, but dies of tuberculosis soon after, and Clive decides to claim the play as his own work with a different title Raincheck and gets it published. With the play being a success, Clive rises to fame as a celebrity script writer in Hollywood, with wealth and women at his beck and call, but eventually by misusing Coulson's work.

One stormy night, while visiting his vacation house Three Point away from the city, Clive finds it occupied by a vagabond named Barrow, and a glamorous lady by name Eve Marlow. Clive learns that Eve is a hooker and Barrow has paid her for her services and they have come to his unoccupied house for the same. Clive beats and drives a weeping Barrow out of the house into the storm, throwing at him 110 USD which Barrow had paid to Eve. Clive then proceeds to touch Eve but she hits him cold and vanishes.

Clive regains senses and returns to California. It is revealed that he is in a relationship with Carol, a pretty script writer in Hollywood who wants to marry him. How

Eve was the downfall of Adam when she, at the behest of the serpent, cajoled him into eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge. In James Hadley Chase’s 1945 thriller, “Eve,” Clive Thurston blames his downfall on a tart, a call girl, named Eve, who somehow bewitched him, although she is indifferent and cold to him. This novel is a walk through the life of a man plagued by guilt and feelings of unworthiness because his playwriting and Hollywood screenwriting is all based on a play he stole from the home of a writer-friend who conveniently had a heart attack. Despite having risen to fame and brief fortune, Thurston lives in fear that he will one day be found out as a fraud and a thief and cannot for the life of him write another successful work. This guilt and shame ties in with his obsession with Eve. Although this story is yet another one about an insider’s view of Hollywood, it is unlike most Hollywood soap operas and it is about obsession and guilt and paranoia. Is Clive Thurston just some scurrilous rat? Is he being an honest narrator or is he even more horrible than he admits? How did the writer end up conveniently having a heart attack? Was Eve really this beguiling evil woman or was Thurston a mad stalker who simply wouldn’t leave her alone? Was Thurston simply powerless to resist her or was he a heartless womanizer? Were the head of major studios out to get him or was he just another failed writer who blamed his lack of success on others? There is something compelling about the way Chase presents this story through the eyes of Thurston, a cheat, a fraud, a cad. ( )

Clasificarlo en "novela negra" es forzar un poco los términos, porque no hay delito ni criminal ni detective. Se trata más bien de una historia de amor chungo. Pero, de alguna manera, el ambiente lo sugiere. Además, el personaje de la mujer fatal, tan peligrosa como irresistible para los hombres, es uno de los muchos tópicos del género, y aquí es el centro de la acción, aunque no la protagonista. Todo eso está bien, pero no me ha entusiasmado. Para pasiones enfermizas, mejor "Lolita" ( )