Publisher: Tygerbright Press
Series: The Paris Trilogy
Audiobook: narrated by Hollie Jackson
Page Length: 340 pages
Genre: Historical Mystery
Synopsis
Young American painter Theodora Faraday struggles to become an artist in Belle Époque Paris. She’s tasted the champagne of success, illustrating poems for the Revenants, a group of poets led by her adored cousin, Averill.
When children she knows vanish mysteriously, Theo confronts Inspecteur Michel Devaux who suspects the Revenants are involved. Theo refuses to believe the killer could be a friend—could be the man she loves. Classic detection and occult revelation lead Michel and Theo through the dark underbelly of Paris, from catacombs to asylums, to the obscene ritual of a Black Mass.
Following the maze of clues they discover the murderer believes he is the reincarnation of the most evil serial killer in the history of France—Gilles de Rais. Once Joan of Arc’s lieutenant, after her death he plunged into an orgy of evil. The Church burned him at the stake for heresy, sorcery, and the depraved murder of hundreds of peasant children.
Whether deranged mind or demonic passion incite him, the killer must be found before he strikes again.
Excerpt
Inspecteur Michel Devaux Meets Averill Charron at a Murder Scene
Michel closed his eyes. He took a deep breath. Another. Exhaustion made it difficult to fight the heave in his guts. For a moment, he literally could not make his feet obey him and move forward. The horror of it stripped his defenses. She was a child—a child barely than his sister had been when she was raped and murdered by Versailles soldiers. Fury and revulsion knotted inside his belly as the old images superimposed their agony on the present. Vengeance, the urge to murder, he understood too well—but not the lust to destroy innocence.
Look past the grotesquerie. Look past the twisting pain of memory.
Catch her killer.
Michel opened his eyes. He made himself approach. He found, if not the calm he wanted, a cold anger that awakened him. The little girl had not been killed here, or the ground would have been drenched with her blood. She was posed carefully, as an artist might. That did not mean the murderer was an artist, but Michel did think he considered his murder art. The killer wanted to shock, to horrify. But he also wanted to mesmerize. It might not be enough to have admired her after he first arranged her. He might need to see her again or to see the shock of those who discovered her. Michel told three of the officers to explore different sections of the cemetery. It was probably useless, as it would be easy to slip away between tombs in the dim morning, but it must be done. A bridge nearby arched over two sections of the cemetery. Michel thought he saw a figure move out of sight, but it might be only a swaying branch. He gestured a young officer he knew, Inspecteur Hugh Rambert, to go have a look.
He nodded toward the young man standing beneath the tree. “He found the body?”
“Yes,” an officer answered. “His name is Averill Charron.”
A Revenant. He knew the young man’s poetry. Morbid poetry did not make a murderer, or there would be a thousand in Paris alone. But a morbid sensibility in a man who had supposedly discovered a corpse needed to be questioned.
Perhaps she was his latest poem.
Michel told one of his remaining men to allow only police to enter the cemetery, the other he set to guard the corpse. Then he went to Averill Charron. The poet looked to be in his early twenties. Only slightly shorter than Michel, he was trim and fit, if not in a blatant way. His defensive posture straightened as Michel stopped before him. His fair skin looked pasty from shock.
“Monsieur Charron,” he said. “I am Inspecteur Devaux.”
“Inspecteur,” Charron replied tersely.
He was tense, sullen, frightened. Natural enough. His eyes were curious, the irises tinted a crystalline blue with only the thinnest dark rim to set them off from the whites. They were even lighter than those of the beautiful blonde, Theodora, who frequented the group. Charron was beautiful too, beautiful enough for it to have caused him problems. Perhaps he wanted the problems? Perhaps not. It was probably irrelevant, but Michel laid the thoughts out in his mind like pieces of a jigsaw, to be shifted until they formed a pattern. He chose a relevant question. “Do you recognize this girl, monsieur?”
Charron looked over at the corpse, looked away. He hesitated a little too long before answering. “I’ve never seen her before.”
“You have seen her,” Michel insisted.
Charron frowned, shook his head. The confusion seemed genuine, yet he spoke a little too carefully, not looking at Michel. “She seems familiar, that’s all.”
“Familiar?” Michel put all his skepticism into his voice.
Now Charron looked at Michel defiantly. “This is not some scene from Zola.”
Surprised, Michel paused. It was exactly what he had been thinking earlier. In Zola’s novel Thérèse Raquin the murderer went to the morgue to look for the body of his victim. Michel waited a heartbeat before inquiring, “So, I have not found my Laurent?”
Surprised in turn, Charron flushed. “No.”
“I am glad to hear it.” The scoffing tone earned him another angry glare. Michel remembered reading the novel as a youth and asking his adoptive father if such things happened. Guillame Devaux had said they did indeed. Killers came to the morgue. They returned to the scene of the crime. When Michel first started as a detective, he looked closely at the too helpful young man who said he had discovered a murdered prostitute and proved him her killer. However illogical, the guilty sometimes reported their crimes. Some killers were horrified by what they had done, trapped in a coil of terror and guilt. Others thought themselves too clever to be caught. Charron might be either. There was no blood on his clothes, but he could have changed them. Michel asked, “Did you touch her?”
“No!” Charron’s teeth chattered a little. He clenched his jaw to stop them. “I thought of taking her pulse, but it was obviously pointless.”
“Taking her pulse,” Michel repeated.
“I am a medical student.”
Interesting. The cuts on the body didn’t look surgical, but they could be deliberately crude. Michel scribbled a note, to unnerve Charron if nothing else. There was some bit of information eluding his brain. It would come. “Why were you here so early, Monsieur Charron? Were you visiting a grave?”
“No.” He took a moment to gather himself before answering. “I go to the cemeteries sometimes to write poetry. The quiet… The mood….”
The explanation he gave was entirely plausible for who he was. That did not mean it was the truth. Michel continued to probe. “How often?”
“Some weeks, several times,” he said defensively. “Sometimes not for several months.”
“To the Montmartre cemetery in particular?” Michel asked.
“Montmartre. Montparnasse. Père Lachaise.”
“Père Lachaise,” Michel repeated, memory tugging him.
“Yes.” Charron’s tone sharpened. “I went to visit the memorial of the Commune.”
Michel knew the reference was meant to antagonize him. Charron would assume that a policeman would despise the Communards. Michel felt a pang in his chest, thinking of the plain stone monument in the cemetery. Keeping his expression impassive, he quoted, “Aux Morts de la Commune.”
“Yes,” Charron replied. For a moment he seemed perplexed, then took up his litany. “I go to the Batignolles to pay my respects to Verlaine. I go to Montparnasse to visit Baudelaire.”
“And today?”
“J'ai voulu communier avec Hugo.” Charron’s acerbic reply called on his earlier reference to the Commune, on Victor Hugo’s liberal sentiments, and on his own desire to commune with the dead. The poet playing word games.
“You got up before dawn because you desired communion with Victor Hugo?” Michel asked flatly.
Charron sighed heavily. “No, I couldn’t sleep. Tuesday I was at the fire. It was horrible—my sister’s arm was broken in the panic. I helped attend to the burn injuries. Finally, I went home but I couldn’t sleep. It was no better last night. I didn’t want to stare at the ceiling again. I’ve been walking in Montmartre most of the night—”
The rambling stopped abruptly. “Can anyone verify that?” Michel asked.
Charron bit his lip. After a moment he said, “I went to the Cabaret du Néant for an hour perhaps. Otherwise, I avoided people.” The Cabaret of Nothingness, where the patrons sat at coffin tables and watched an optical illusion in which a man dissolved into a skeleton. Would someone who had just murdered a young girl dally with such nonsense? Or did he go there before, for inspiration? As a secret joke? In any case, he might have an alibi for an hour at least. “What time?”
Charron shrugged. “Two?”
Michel could smell the absinthe on his breath. However, the scent was faint, and he didn’t seem to be drunk or even hung over. He might have been shocked sober. “Tell me, Monsieur Charron, do you believe that a poet must arrive at the unknown through a relentless disordering of his senses?”
Charron stared at him. “You read Rimbaud’s poetry, Inspecteur?”
“In Paris, even chimneysweeps read Rimbaud.”
“You are probably right.” Charron gave a short, harsh laugh. “Yes, I believe a poet must seek the unknown. He must break the bonds of convention by any means possible.” He paused and looked at Michel intently. “Every class has conventions which imprison the mind, the soul, as tightly as a coffin.”
“And must he become monstrous?” Michel prodded him once again with Rimbaud.
“He must become a seer.”
The missing bit of information flashed in Michel’s mind. “Dr. Urbain Charron is your father?”
“Yes.” Hearing the name, the younger Charron’s nostrils quivered as if they scented rottenness.
So, there was trouble at home. Michel had heard of something unpleasant about the father. Work with the criminally insane? Or with prostitutes? Vivisection? He would have to look into that. “You are following in his footsteps?”
The Revenant’s face became a mask. “I am not at all sure it is the right field for me.”
“No?”
“No,” Charron responded icily. “I’m not fond of blood.”
It was an effort not to murmur touché. Michel doubted it was true, but it was an excellent retort. Instead, he told Charron he was free to leave. There was no reason to charge him, but he would be investigated, discreetly.
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Meet the Author
She’s been a tie dye artist, go-go dancer, creator of ceramic beasties, writing teacher, illustrator, and has won prizes for her chocolate desserts. Her current obsession is creating perfumes inspired by her Parisian characters.
Yves lives in Albany with her mystery writer husband and their cats, Charlotte and Emily, the Flying Bronte Sisters.
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Thank you for hosting Yves Fey today, with such an enticing excerpt. xx
ReplyDeleteThis book is definitely one for my TBR!
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