What a pleasure to read this marvelous book! What dismay to have it end.... and with a twist that stuns the reader's brain. Who could've killed poor Saint Landry, who? I asked as I crept through the streets of 18th century Paris. But Susanne Alleyn, in her infinite creativity, comes up with the perfect assailant. Well, no more about that intriguing killer--I won't be a spoiler. I'll just say that all of Alleyn's characters are beautifully imagined and true to their era: Aristide, in particular, with his traumatic past--and troubled present.
I won't reiterate the plot: you can read the starred review in PW. But I do want to offer what I like about this novel--aside from the fact that I'm in love with this period of history, and with the French enlightenment and pre-revolutionary period, and oh--with Paris itself. I do love the way Aristide skulks into the sleasy, smoky, noisy literary cafes, and sludges through the scary, winding streets. I love the cemeteries--their stinks and slimes, not to mention a dead body with its throat slit and skin tatooed (so to speak)with eerie symbols. I love the way the author wholly focuses on the mystery, with no extraneous subplots: we shadow the bumbling, engaging Aristide (who just wants to be a scribbler of seditious pamphlets--not a sleuth) every surprising minute of the way. A few cul-de-sacs, yes, into interesting backstory, along with an bit of unrequited love story; but mostly the novel speeds inexorably toward its end: a solution to the crime. Alleyn doesn't let us put the book down! I'm exhausted, but exhilarated.
Oh, and I'm highly intrigued with the occasional real historical person our antihero meets along the way: the Duc d'Orleans, who wants to replace the ineffectual Lous XVI, and most fascinating of all, the mad scientist Honore Fragonard and his astonishing Cavalier of the Apocalypse. A brilliant addition, to be sure! A terrific title. A terrific novel!... And finally, I love the way the author didn't jolt our bones in a rush of hurtling carriages and fiacres in the obligatory thriller-type climax, but rather in a neat, shocking turn of events, a moment of horror, and then, sigh, the heart-piercing End. Ah-hhhh. PLEASE, please SUBMIT!