The novel by the French writer-journalist Denis Robert “In Matilda's Web” was published in Paris in 1991, enjoyed great success among readers and served as the basis for the film script. The novel is based on a real story that happened in France and about which Many newspapers and magazines wrote. A woman named Simone Weber (in the novel Mathilde Wissembourg) was found guilty of murdering and dismembering her lover. The crime amazed even seasoned police officers with both its cruelty and sophistication of execution. Despite a long and painstaking investigation, no indisputable evidence of Mathilde Wissembourg’s guilt was ever found. Along with real facts, the novel contains a lot of the author’s imagination. Investigating this terrible story, the author tries to understand the crime from the inside and unexpectedly finds himself at the mercy of the identity of the killer. In the original, the novel is called “Chair Mathilde”, this title is a kind of play on words (chair - “flesh”, “skin” and chère - “dear” sound the same). Having been in the shoes of Matilda, the author comes to the conclusion: “We are all guilty and innocent at the same time.” The work provides a subtle psychological analysis of criminal behavior; the author draws us into the world of pathological fantasies of a killer. In this regard, the novel contains many scenes of violence, cruelty and elements of a horror novel. At the same time, this is a novel about love, hatred, jealousy - concepts that are eternal and relevant.