Book description
Picture the Scarlet Pimpernell as a woman-dealing with murder before
the Terror made heads roll… It's the eve of the French Revolution.
Fiscal crisis and social tensions brew. Anne Cartier, a headstrong young
vaudeville actress at Sadler's Wells company in London hears terrible
news. Her stepfather, the actor Antoine Dubois has mysteriously died in
Paris. The official verdict: he killed his mistress, then himself. Anne
enlists the aid of Colonel Paul de Saint-Martin and his adjutant Georges
Charpentier of the royal highway patrol. But, in her search for truth,
Anne befriends a deaf, illiterate seamstress with a talent for puppetry
who gives Anne an entre into the Palais Royale. Her quest further
confronts her with an amateur theatrical society of dissolute young
noblemen; a tormented female botanist; a sadistic aesthete; a rich,
well-connected financier; a professional assassin. Unravelling the
mystery tests Anne's nerve as well as her remarkable acrobatic skills.
At a critical juncture in the investigation, she acts the part of an
exotic queen in Indian costume at a reception. Priceless Indian jewelry
disappears. Its owner, an aged count is murdered. And a venal police
inspector threatens to derail Anne's project. The story rises to a
violent climax in a vast limestone caveoutside Paris where the city has
begun to bury its dead. Historian O'Brien's debut novel is elegantly
written as befits the times and explores borders between countries and
between layers of society. Few have chosen to place a crime novel here.
O'Brien makes us wonder why. What begins as a deceptively simple
mystery-Who killed Anne Cartier's actor stepfather?-becomes an
increasingly complex story enriched by its setting, Paris in 1786. Anne,
also a performer, is brought to Paris from London by the handsome
Colonel Saint-Martin at the behest of a patron of Anne's family.
Determined to learn the circumstances surrounding Antoine's death, Anne
becomes enmeshed in the Paris theatrical scene and the dark shadows that
surround it. While some authors would be content with one backdrop,
O'Brien expertly weaves in another. Anne has parlayed her skills as an
actress into a second profession: she is also a teacher of the deaf,
employing methods she has learned in England and perfects in France. Her
two skills dovetail neatly as she strives to solve not one but several
murders and reveal the identity of a jewel thief as well. The plot is as
circuitous as the streets of Paris, with something interesting lurking
around every corner. The bold actress/teacher makes an intriguing
heroine, and the pre-revolution period proves particularly hospitable as
the backdrop for a mystery series. An auspicious debut. Charles
O'Brien is Assistant Professor of Film Studies at Carleton University in
Canada. He has published articles on film historiography and on
relations between film theory and practice.
