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Three Is a Crowd
Nabokov plays with the thriller genre, infusing it with heavy doses of satire, sarcasm, and dark humor — elements that would become the hallmark of his literary work
The ability that some writers have to bring new dimensions to stories and plots that have already been told many times is a rare skill; to ensure that, even when recounting something that has been told a thousand times before, the reader can still be surprised is undoubtedly a gift that, when it appears, shines with a light of its own.
Something akin to that artistic burst occurs in King, Queen, Knave, a novel by Vladimir Nabokov in which the Russian-born writer displays all his talent in recounting the vicissitudes of a protagonist who falls in love with a married woman and is eventually persuaded by her to kill her husband.
What makes this novel interesting is divided into two distinct parts.
In the first act — long and unhurried — we witness the introduction of the character, Franz, as we come to understand his motivations for moving to a new city, his new life, and, most importantly, how he meets the other central figures: his uncle and his wife Martha, a young woman of overwhelming magnetism and beauty.
