A new review of this novella — A Small Thing for Yolanda by Jan Edwards — has been posed recently on the Grey Dog Tales website:
“This short novella (just under 80 pages) was originally published by Lycopolis Press in 2018, in Into the Night Eternal: Tales of French Folk Horror, an anthology of four novellas. For this reason, this Alchemy Press novella is marked as the second edition, albeit it is the first in this standalone format.
Set in Paris, the story involves Laeticia Toureaux, an Italian ex-pat widow to a French husband, who occasionally performs dubious information gathering jobs for the French authorities under her nom-de-plume of Yolanda. These jobs usually entail getting ‘close’ to various men, to extract information.
Her handler, Georges Rouffignac, of Agence Rouff, has a job for her, but the men she’ll be working for will not tell her exactly what they are trying to find out. Coupled with the feeling that she has been followed, this does not fill her with enthusiasm, but the money is very good. It’s not long before she’s not so sure it’s anywhere near good enough!
Yolanda is an entertaining character, and I soon found myself caught up in the story, as it goes from one bad situation to worse. From the date, it’s not unexpected that Nazis are involved, and the original anthology title gives away the supernatural element. It’s a fun short read, and it left me hoping for more tales of Yolanda, and Agence Rouff.”
Reviewed by Dave Brzeski
The Alchemy Press 