I LOVE FRANCE!

You can share here about any book

or anything cultural you just discovered related to France, Paris, etc.

Please spread the news on Twitter, Facebook, etc !

Feel free to grab my button,

and link your own post through Mister Linky,

at the bottom of this post.

*******

Baudelaire’s Revenge

In full compliance with FTC Guidelines, I received this ebook for free 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.

Baudelaire’s Revenge by Bob Van LaerhovenTranslated by Brian Doyle (from the Dutch) Publisher: Pegasus Books Release Date: April 15, 2014 ISBN:  978-1605985480 Pages: 268 Genre: Historical Fiction / Historical Mystery 2007 Winner of the Hercule Poirot Prize for Best Crime Novel Source: Received from the publisher for a virtual book tour on HFVBT Goodreads Buy the Book Amazon Barnes & Noble (Hardcover) Barnes & Noble (Nook) IndieBound

This book counts for the following Reading Challenges:

         

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

 This is one of the most difficult reviews I have had to write. Like Commissioner Paul Lefèvre, 53, the hero of this book, I love poems by Baudelaire, considered “one of France’s greatest men of letters, a mere three years after his death” (page 2), but the book was nothing I could have imagined.
Incidentally, it may be the 2nd book only I have read translated from the Dutch!

Lefèvre also enjoys meeting with “wenches”. One day, he hears a scream from a bordello and finds a corpse. Near the body, bearing the tattoo of a mythical animal on the left wrist,  is a passage by Baudelaire, apparently written in the poet’s handwriting. But can a dead poet come back to life to kill? As Lefèvre starts his inquiry, he discovers other murders, and they all have in common mysterious lines by Baudelaire… Lefèvre gets progressively involved in all kinds of crazy events, until he gets the shocking revelation of what really happened and who did it.

There are great passages from Baudelaire’s poems interspersed, and lots of elements on his sick psyche, his drug taking, his family, also the tough competition between young poets.

The historical context with Napoleon III, the Prussian War, and later on La Commune, is wonderfully recreated. The general disdain and hatred towards Napoleon are also clearly conveyed.

The emperor was a simpleton with an inflated ego, who was determined t lead France into a war it could never win. p.10

The atmosphere of Paris, with its catacombs, its dirt, its hunger and despair, is so real you would not want to go out by night in Paris if you were there as you read the book!

The sky above Paris was restless and darker than the cloak of a servant girl waiting in a doorway for her lover. p.18

The book starts like a regular mystery, and then it relentlessly plunges and drags you into Baudelaire’s world, a world of depravity, of insane mix of erotic fantasy and pure evil, to which you can add drugs, opium, sadism, and a very sick view of religion.

It was all very disturbing for me, hence my only 3 Eiffel Towers.

BUT if I put aside my own personal tastes and feelings, I have to admit the writing is incredibly good, the suspense of the main plots and sub-plots will not let you sleep. And I have rarely read a book that manages so well to drag you down to the depth of its darkness. Definitely not unlike Baudelaire’s Les fleurs du mal, and in that sense this is a real tour de force. I understand why it would have received the prestigious Hercule Poirot Prize for Best Crime Novel.

VERDICT: In this super atmospheric historical mystery, you will have the opportunity to meet Baudelaire’s world and spirit. Beware!, it was a world of pure madness, of insane fantasy, of sick eroticism. Following very suspenseful plots, you will discover a shocking world superbly re-crafted for you.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bob Van Laerhoven became a full-time author in 1991 and has written more than thirty books in Holland and Belgium. The context of his stories isn’t invented behind his desk, rather it is rooted in personal experience. As a freelance travel writer, for example, he explored conflicts and trouble-spots across the globe from the early 1990s to 2005. Echoes of his experiences on the road also trickle through in his novels. Somalia, Liberia, Sudan, Gaza, Iran, Iraq, Myanmar… to name but a few.

During the Bosnian war, Van Laerhoven spent part of 1992 in the besieged city of Sarajevo. Three years later he was working for MSF – Doctors without frontiers – in the Bosnian city of Tuzla during the NATO bombings. At that moment the refugees arrived from the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica. Van Laerhoven was the first writer from the Low Countries to be given the chance to speak to the refugees. His conversations resulted in a travel book: Srebrenica. Getuigen van massamoord – Srebrenica. Testimony to a Mass Murder. The book denounces the rape and torture of the Muslim population of this Bosnian-Serbian enclave and is based on first-hand testimonies. He also concludes that mass murders took place, an idea that was questioned at the time but later proven accurate.

All these experiences contribute to Bob Van Laerhoven’s rich and commendable oeuvre, an oeuvre that typifies him as the versatile author of novels, travel stories, books for young adults, theatre pieces, biographies, poetry, non-fiction, letters, columns, articles… He is also a prize-winning author:  in 2007 he won the Hercule Poirot Prize for best thriller of the year with his novel De Wraak van Baudelaire – Baudelaire’s Revenge.

For more information please visit Bob Van Laerhoven’s website.
You can also connect with him on Facebook and Twitter.

 

Watch the Book Trailer

HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK YET?
DO YOU LIKE BAUDELAIRE’S POEMS?
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS  IN A COMMENT PLEASE

***

 

CLICK ON THE BANNER HERE BELOW
TO READ OTHER REVIEWS,
INTERVIEW, GUEST-POST
AND ENTER MORE GIVEAWAYS

AND NOW FOR A CHANCE TO WIN THIS BOOK !
= 2 Hardcover copies for US/Canada readers!

Click on  the entry-form link here

Entry-Form

***

Just a reminder:

please if possible

include the title of the book or topic in your link:

name of your blog (name of the book title or topic):

Thanks!