At the heart of this marvelous tale we are introduced to Marcel Després. Marcel remembers every detail of every day of his life. Every detail. So why are the details of the murder of his wife different than the details of the police reports? After all, he should remember, he was the shooter. Why did the Prefect have Marcel moved to the asylum? He admitted to the shooting. He should be going to the guillotine or at least to one of the prison islands to spend his life doing ‘hard time’ and die there.
Wow! This is a very complex tapestry using many threads to complete the whole story. Often you may wonder where each thread is leading. As you wonder about these threads, you suddenly realize they have wrapped you up so tightly you cannot put the book down until you can stand back and see the entire tapestry his words have created. This novel is a literary wonder of suspense that will take you back to the bawdy, wild days of Paris at the turn of the 19th century. I would highly recommend this book to any reader who loves a deep detailed suspense. Sedgwick has authored several titles for teens. He is the winner of YALSA’s 2014 Printz Award for Midwinterblood. This title would be appropriate for the older teens or New Adult. If you have teens who are more mature and tend to read up this might just fit the bill for them. There is a reason this is for adult readers.

I want to thank the publishers for generously providing this title through NetGalley and Edelweiss for my honest review.

ISBN: 9781681773407 PUB: Pegasus Books Book BD: 03/07/2017