Product Description

An unusual death during a society evening at the Opera reveals something sinister at the heart of the French court... October 1761 finds the newly-promoted Commissioner Le Floch on duty at a Royal performance of Rameau s latest work. Events take a dramatic turn and Nicolas is soon embarked on his second major investigation when the body of a prominent courtier s son is found. The initial evidence points to suicide, but Le Floch s instincts tell him he is dealing with murder of the most gruesome kind.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #144875 in Books
• Published on: 2009-01-15
• Original language: French
• Binding: Paperback
• 342 pages

About the Author
Jean-Francois Parot is a diplomat, currently French Ambassador to an African country and a historian specialising in 18th century Paris Lives in a chateau on the Loire

Customer Reviews

As good as the first one !
I don't agree at all with the first review. This one is, as good as the first one, an intense journey in the century of Louis XV.
We enjoy more and more all the heroes of the "Commissaire au Chatelet" Nicolas Le Floch alias marquis de Ranreuil.
I don't know if the others books (7 at this date) will be translated but I hope it for the english readers because they are all marvelous and I'm eagerly waiting the next one.

Le Floch returns
Commissioner Le Floch made a stunning debut in "The Chatelet Apprentice" and now returns in a story set rather later in his career. The familiar cast returns in this tale which tells of an apparent suicide that, for some reason, the victim's father, an aristocrat of the old school, would rather not have investigated.

Other reviews have commented on the amount of to-ing and fro-ing between Paris and Versailles, but in a police procedural that, to my mind, simply adds realism as Le Floch tries to investigate a crime that some people will not accept was a crime at all, amongst people of influence who are able to bypass the protection that his boss, Sartine, can give him.

The change in setting gives the book a different flavour to the first, but we see Le Floch growing in confidence as time passes - but still with the flair for the dramatic setpiece unveiling of the guilty that Sartine regards as simply showmanship.

The tale is a good one, with some interesting characters and some keen detection by Le Floch. Not fast-paced, certainly, but one that rewards the more careful reader who is keeping an eye open for subtle clues.

Nicholas Le Foch mortally wounded
For those who thoroughly enjoyed "The Chatelet Apprentice", the Man with the Lead Stomach is a pale pastiche of the first novel. The characters are two dimensional, the plot disjointed and lacking in credibility and the vivd description of life in pre-revolutionary Paris almost completely lacking.
One might be forgiven for wondering if its really the same author.
Nicholas Le Foch deserved better.