She played in street theatre and in some films, taking part in the French production of Fleuve étincelant (The Flashing Stream) by Charles Langbridge Morgan.
She gave up her acting career after her marriage and at the same time as her first novel, Tu vas mourir, appeared in the 1953 Éditions Denoël collection "Oscar" edited by Marcel Duhamel.
This period was Arley's heyday as she published, among others, Duel au premier sang (1973, brought to the screen by Sergio Gobbi under the title Blondy), Les Armures de sable (1976), and À tête reposée (1976), the narrative of a tragedy lived by a father whose child is condemned to death, written with great simplicity and winner of the 1979 prize for French Suspense.
Georges Rieben noted "her taste for romantic drama, her grasp of the human condition, imprisoned by tiny miseries, subjugated to its destiny".
Arley's reputation in France suffered from a lack of adventurous French publishers who favoured the roman noir and neo-polar style at that time.