The Devil in Montmartre
A Mystery in Fin de Siècle Paris
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
When the mutilated corpse of a beautiful dancer is found in a Montmartre sewer, a nervous public fears that Jack the Ripper has crossed the Channel—but Inspector Achille Lefebvre has his own theories.
Amid the hustle and bustle of the Paris 1889 Universal Exposition, workers discover the mutilated corpse of a popular model and Moulin Rouge Can-Can dancer in a Montmartre sewer. Hysterical rumors swirl that Jack the Ripper has crossed the Channel, and Inspector Achille Lefebvre enters the Parisian underworld to track down the brutal killer. His suspects are the artist Toulouse-Lautrec; Jojo, an acrobat at the Circus Fernando, and Sir Henry Collingwood, a mysterious English gynecologist and amateur artist.
Pioneering the as-yet-untried system of fingerprint detection and using cutting edge forensics, including crime scene photography, anthropometry, pathology, and laboratory analysis, Achille attempts to separate the innocent from the guilty. But he must work quickly before the “Paris Ripper” strikes again.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Has Jack the Ripper crossed the Channel? Insp. Achille Lefebvre, "a fervent advocate for scientific methods of detection," tries to find out in this uneven mystery from Inbinder (Confessions of the Creature). Early in the morning of October 15, 1889, two Paris night soil collectors fish a female torso out of a Montmartre cesspool. The victim is later identified as a can-can dancer at the Moulin Rouge who disappeared a few days earlier. The savagery of the killing raises fears that the Ripper has resumed his slaughter of women and increases the pressure on Lefebvre. The autopsy reveals the dancer had undergone a recent procedure that casts suspicion on an eminent surgeon, while a small shoe print at the scene of the body's discovery may be that of artist Toulouse-Lautrec, who lives in Montmartre. Plenty of precise period detail helps drive the plot toward a resolution that will disappoint even readers who have been engaged until then.
