Genre:
Murder mystery
Description:
"A
murdered mayor. A second body reduced to skeleton and dust. Their
public display so horrific that the police are baffled.
Everyone
assumes uninterested heir Louis Saint-Blancat will finally settle
down and focus on the politics of Toulouse, France. Louis becomes the
center of attention in the press as his mother and sister pressure
him to follow the family’s political tradition, while all he wants
is to track down his father’s killer and return to his
globe-trotting lifestyle.
Determined
to ferret out the story behind the perplexing assassination that took
place at the very center of Toulouse, struggling English journalist
Catherine Marty finds an unlikely ally in Louis."
Author:
"R.W.
Wallace grew up in Norway, but has lived almost half her life in
Toulouse in South-Western France. Fascinated with Toulouse and its
history, it became the natural setting and inspiration for her
stories. She divides her time between a busy city life in Toulouse
and a laidback country setting at the foot of the Pyrenees with her
better half and two miniature versions of herself."
For
more information visit the author's page on Amazon.
Appraisal:
This
is the story of Louis Saint-Blancat, home from America for his
father's funeral in Toulouse. Mystery and rumour surround his
father's sudden death and Louis teams up with journalist, Catherine
Marty, to look for the truth. His father had been the popular mayor
of Toulouse for many years. Was Louis now to believe that he had been
taking bribes all the time? His mother and sister are very vague
about the idea; their only interest is in putting pressure on Louis
to go into politics himself, to take his father's place in the town.
A
gripping opening chapter tells about Louis' murdered father, found
with the mummified remains of a prostitute which falls to dust when
touched. There are two main characters, Louis and Catherine. Louis is
handsome, cultured, rich and charming. Catherine is blonde, pretty
and broke. The town, Toulouse, is almost a character itself. The
author obviously knows it very well; she conveys the look and
atmosphere of the squares, the streets and the houses with great
affection.
The
murderer is suitably deranged and dangerous, and believable too, and
there are some delightfully ghoulish passages:
"Catherine
moved her light out along the arm attached to the hand. Staring blue
dead eyes came into view. The skin was starting to fall off and a
patch of blond hair was already missing."
"The
heads fell off quite easily—a fact Catherine could have done
without knowing—but cracking the skull open took a solid kick to
the side of the head. . "
The
main problem with this book lies in the characters of Louis and
Catherine. Neither seems to be quite grown up; their conversations
are often childish and petty and Louis seems to be very much under
his mother's influence although he is in his mid-thirties. He thinks:
"His
mother would have a fit if she saw him talking with his mouth full."
And he
is comforted when she makes him her special cup of hot chocolate.
Catherine,
at first, appears to be an independent, confident, career woman. She
has an ex-husband whom she treats with impatience and hostility but
admits eventually to feeling abandoned and lost without a man in her
life.
Another
problem is the incorrect use of words - "absolutions"
instead of ablutions, and incorrect grammar/syntax.
"
. . . all around Catherine’s body . . . was a stone box the size
and shape of a coffin."
“I
have no plans of going into politics.”
English
is not the first language of the author which explains these
mistakes. There is also quite a lot of over-explaining and
repetition, and information conveyed through unatural dialogue, but
nothing that a good edit wouldn't fix.
The
narrative pace of this novel is good, the story is interesting and
the ideas behind the murders are very creative but the bad syntax and
the immature characters spoil the overall impression.
FYI:
Some
grisly scenes
Format/Typo
Issues:
Many
errors in syntax
Rating:
*** Three Stars
Reviewed
by: Joan Slowey
Approximate word count:
75-80,000 words
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