Death in Her Hands was written five years ago, she has said — just after completing her short story collection Homesick for Another World (2017) and before the widely acclaimed My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018). But while both Moshfegh’s short and long fiction usually enthral with her antiheroes’ quirky takes on life, Death in Her Hands is heavy-handed and not nearly as much fun. ‘It’s a rather dark, damning way to begin a story: the pronouncement of a mystery whose investigation is futile,’ Vesta muses. ‘Was futility a subject worthy of exploration...?’ The jury, I’m afraid, is out.