The Hanged Man
A Mystery in Fin de Siecle Paris
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Like many fin de siècle Parisians, Inspector Achille Lefebvre is looking forward to a pleasant summer holiday at a seaside resort with his wife, Adele—but a body found hanging from a bridge in a public park interferes with the inspector's plans.
Paris: July, 1890. Inspector Achille Lefebvre and his wife Adele are enjoying their stay at a seaside resort—until a body found hanging from a bridge in a public park demands the Inspector's attention.
Is it suicide or murder? A twisted trail of evidence draws Inspector Lefebvre into a shadowy underworld of international intrigue, espionage, and terrorism. Time is of the essence; pressure mounts on the Sûreté to get results. Achille's chief orders him to work with his former partner, Inspector Rousseau, now in charge of a special unit in the newly formed political brigade. But can Achille trust the detective who let him down in another case?
Inspector Lefebvre uses innovative forensics and a network of police spies to uncover a secret alliance, a scheme involving the sale of a cutting-edge high explosive, and an assassination plot that threatens to ignite a world war.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in 1890, Inbinder's talky follow-up to 2014's The Devil in Montmatre takes Insp. Achille Lefebvre to a crime scene in Paris's Parc des Buttes-Chaumont. Hanging from the park's so-called suicide bridge is a man with a Biblical verse about Judas's betrayal and suicide, written in Cyrillic, pinned to his jacket. Achille learns from a Russian acquaintance of his, who translates the note, that the victim is a Russian emigrant involved in anarchist circles. Determining that the death is murder rather than suicide, Achille deploys a network of spies and informers from Paris's underworld and works uneasily with an unreliable former colleague, now in the political division of the Paris police force, to uncover the violent terrorist network of which the murder is only an offshoot. Intriguing period details and personalities, notably the artist Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, enrich the plot. Unfortunately, Inbinder reveals the hanging's perpetrators early on and elucidates most plot points through explanation rather than dramatization. As a result, both the investigation and the conspiracy lack suspense.
