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The Bones of Paris

Laurie R. KING

Release date: September 10, by Random House/Bantam

432 pages

In full compliance with FTC Guidelines,
I received this book as an ARC copy for free from the publisher
in exchange for a fair and honest review.
I was in no way compensated for this post as a reviewer,
and the thoughts are my own.

This book counts for the following Reading Challenges:

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

As I had never read anything by Laurie R. King, participating in this virtual book tour was a great opportunity to discover a great and famous author, through this historical mystery.

The Bones of Paris is not a short mystery to have fun for a few hours. It is a very dense book, very well written. it will grab you and will not let you go, it will drag you in the most noir and macabre places of Paris in the 1920s. You will feel horrified at times, but beware, you will not be able to resist the pull.

I enjoyed the main character of Harris, an American in Paris, and followed him through the city, through Pigalle, Montparnasse, Montmartre, trying to figure out what happened to Philippa, who’s been missing. Then, more people are missing…
With Harris, I hoped against hope, but I discovered something very different than what he and I the reader, expected through him.

I was also intrigued about his relation to a certain Bennett; details got clearer little by little.

The greatness of the book is more than just mystery and a fantastic sense of suspense. It is also within the background of the rich cultural life in Paris, at a time when the American presence was booming in the French capital city.
You get plunged in the world of cafés and prostitutes, and meet extraordinary artists, such as the famous photographer Man Ray, and are led gradually to their very gruesome art, an art very popular in France between the two world wars. That’s the height of the Dada and surrealist movements, remember.

You will visit fascinating and intriguing places in Paris, such as the Théâtre du Grand-Guignol (closed in 1962) and the Catacombes, that you may have visited for real.

It was also a fun bonus to meet Ernest Hemingway, Josephine Baker, and Sylvia Beach, running the famous English bookstore, Shakespeare & Company – I visited it last year and posted some pictures.

The Bones of Paris is actually the 2nd volume with Harris, but it works perfectly as a stand-alone. Here is about the 1st volume, Touchstone, in case you are intrigued.

If you love mysteries, historical fiction, and books set in Paris, well, why are you adding this book to your already too long TBR? You need to read this book now! And I definitely plan to read more books by Laurie R. King

QUOTATIONS

Additionally, I enjoyed very much some descriptions of the city. See for instance:

The raindrops grew smaller, then slowed. As the sky cleared, the full moon pressed against the house, cool light whispering a path along the threads of the bedroom carpet. page 3

In general, Americans were an entertaining lot, what with their boundless energy and complete lack of subtlety –although like any Parisian, there were times when he viewed the Yanqui invasion with as little enthusiasm as he would a herd of bison loosed in the Trocadéro. page 144

Wednesday evening, the full moon began to push through clouds above the city of light. It nosed into the city’s dark corners, danced on the Seine, played with the spires of stone and steel. caused the blood to stir in reply. page 264

WHAT IS IT ABOUT

Russell/Sherlock Holmes series, consistently writes richly detailed and thoroughly suspenseful novels that bring a distant time and place to brilliant life. Now, in this thrilling new book, King leads readers into the vibrant and sensual Paris of the Jazz Age—and reveals the darkest secrets of its denizens.

Paris, France: September 1929. For Harris Stuyvesant, the assignment is a private investigator’s dream—he’s getting paid to troll the cafés and bars of Montparnasse, looking for a pretty young woman. The American agent has a healthy appreciation for la vie de bohème, despite having worked for years at the U.S. Bureau of Investigation. The missing person in question is Philippa Crosby, a twenty-two year old from Boston who has been living in Paris, modeling and acting. Her family became alarmed when she stopped all communications, and Stuyvesant agreed to track her down. He wholly expects to find her in the arms of some up-and-coming artist, perhaps experimenting with the decadent lifestyle that is suddenly available on everyrue and boulevard.

As Stuyvesant follows Philippa’s trail through the expatriate community of artists and writers, he finds that she is known to many of its famous—and infamous—inhabitants, from Shakespeare and Company’s Sylvia Beach to Ernest Hemingway to the Surrealist photographer Man Ray. But when the evidence leads Stuyvesant to the Théâtre du Grand-Guignol in Montmartre, his investigation takes a sharp, disturbing turn. At the Grand-Guignol, murder, insanity, and sexual perversion are all staged to shocking, brutal effect: depravity as art, savage human nature on stage.

Soon it becomes clear that one missing girl is a drop in the bucket. Here, amid the glittering lights of the cabarets, hides a monster whose artistic coup de grâce is to be rendered in blood. And Stuyvesant will have to descend into the darkest depths of perversion to find a killer . . . sifting through The Bones of Paris. [provided by the publisher]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Laurie R. King is the New York Times bestselling author of ten Mary Russell mysteries,
five contemporary novels featuring Kate Martinelli,
and the acclaimed novels A Darker Place, Folly, Keeping Watch, and Touchstone.
She lives in Northern California
where she is currently at work on her next novel.

http://www.laurierking.com/

https://www.facebook.com/laurierking

https://twitter.com/LaurieRKing

AND NOW FOR A CHANCE TO WIN THIS BOOK !

Good luck!

Notes:

* If you have problems entering the giveaway for this book, please send me an email before midnight on 8/15 at ehc16e {at] yahoo [dot) com. Include in it:

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* when you enter a giveaway, I keep your email address only until a winner has been chosen and has confirmed. After that, I delete the form where your answers were stored during the duration of the giveaway. If you win and you email me your mailing address, I delete this email and its information as soon as I have mailed you the book.