"'Ingenious,' 'elegant,' 'sinister' – these are also adjectives that approximate, but fall short of, the narrative power of Mygale. Much like Poe's 'tales of terror,' Mygale is a story that invites both respect and repulsion: As a reader, you're happy to have read it... and just as happy, ultimately, to close the covers on its weird world." – Maureen Corrigan, The Washington Post Book World

"More Jim Thompson that Raymond Chandler, Jonquet's prose is rough hewn, the panache is all in Mygale's bizarre setup, gruesome scenarios and genderbending ending." – St. Petersberg Times

Thierry Jonquet (b. 1954, Paris) has sold soap, painted white lines on the road, taught juvenile delinquents and worked in geriatric hospitals as an occupational therapist. Jonquet is an exponent of the hardboiled style of French noir that is inflected by post-May 1968 politics and social critique. His main source of inspiration is the daily newspaper, a trove of anecdotal evidence of, in his words, "the barbarity of the world we live in." But his writing is not so much politically engagé as cathartic. Jonquet’s crime novels and children's books have garnered many literary prizes.

Donald Nicholson-Smith has translated many works of fiction and nonfiction from the French, including The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord, The Production of Space by Henri Lefebvre, The Revolution of Everyday Life by Raoul Vaneigem, and Three to Kill by Jean-Patrick Manchette.