Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11500 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 306 pages

Synopsis
In Paris 1890, Lady's maid Denise le Louarn fears the worst when her mistress, Odette de Valois, vanishes from the Pere-Lachaise cemetery during a visit to her husband's grave. All alone in the great metropolis, Denise knows just one person she can go to for help: Odette's former lover, Victor Legris. When the frightened girl turns up at his bookshop and tells him her story, Victor feels there must be a simple explanation for Odette's disappearance. But as he begins to look into the matter, it soon becomes clear that something sinister lies behind events at the Pere-Lachaise.

Customer Reviews

Enjoyable and light-hearted murder mystery
I'd never heard of this French writer before but saw a book review that praised this book. It's well written, for which the translator must take quite a bit of credit, and the story romps along at a good pace with quite a bit of period detail about Paris at the end of the 19th century. It falls into the Agatha Christie mode of detective fiction with an amateur sleuth solving the mystery, but the story has its lighter side describing the foibles and love life of the main characters.

Better Claude... much better...
Having been a little luke-warm in my review of Claude Izner's first book, 'Murder on the Eiffel Tower', I approached this book with a `I'll give it one more chance...' attitude.

This is better. Much better. The pace is faster and all in all it's a cracking good yarn with memorable characters and good descriptions that together produce a strong story line.

Legris's character (as with those of Tasha, Jojo, his mother and others introduced in the first book) are developed further. New characters are fleshed out to a greater degree than previously.

The same meticulous attention to 1890's Paris (which I loved) is still there but without the feeling of being quoted chunks from a guide book or encyclopaedia (which I disliked).

It looks as if Liliane Korb and Laurence Lefèvre (the sisters behind Claude Izner pen-name) are going from strength to strength and I await 'The Montmartre Investigation' - Victor and Jojo's third investigation - with renewed interest and enthusiasm.

Another hit for Claude Izner
Having enjoyed Claude Izner's first book published by Gallic Books, Murder on the Eiffel Tower, I couldn't wait for this one to be published.

I was not disapointed at all. Victor Legris, bookseller turned detective has really got into the swing of solving mysteries, but not without him almost getting killed in the process. The book keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout, with not a single wasted paragraph.

Bravo to the 2 sisters who write under the pen name of Claude Izner and bravo to Gallic Books for making these novels available to the English speaking world.