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    The Châtelet Apprentice: Nicolas Le Floch Investigation #1
    Unavailable
    The Châtelet Apprentice: Nicolas Le Floch Investigation #1
    Unavailable
    The Châtelet Apprentice: Nicolas Le Floch Investigation #1
    Ebook434 pages8 hours

    The Châtelet Apprentice: Nicolas Le Floch Investigation #1

    By Jean-Francois Parot

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Adapted for television in France, the first of the Nicolas Le Floch mysteries tells the story of murder against the backdrop of the glittering court of Louis XV.

    'Has all the twists, turns and surprises the genre demands' Independent on Sunday

    It's France, 1761. Beyond the glittering court of Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour at Versailles, lies Paris, a capital in the grip of crime and immorality ... A police officer disappears and Nicolas Le Floch, a young recruit to the force, is instructed to find him. When unidentified human remains suddenly come to light, he seems to have a murder investigation on his hands. As the city descends into Carnival debauchery, Le Floch will need all his skill, courage and integrity to unravel a mystery which threatens to implicate the highest in the land. 

    This is the first in a series of six historical crime novels which has sold in excess of 400,000 copies in French. The author brings eighteenth-century Paris vividly to life and the story features real-life characters Madame de Pompadour and Louis XV as well as engaging hero Nicolas le Floch. 

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGallic Books
    Release dateFeb 1, 2008
    ISBN9781906040468
    Unavailable
    The Châtelet Apprentice: Nicolas Le Floch Investigation #1

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    Reviews for The Châtelet Apprentice

    3.5/5

    74 ratings6 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A terrific murder mystery set in 18th. Century France during the reign of Louis XIV.
      Vivid descriptions of Paris and the people who lived and worked there add to the atmosphere of this time.
      A great read!
      I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review.
    • 3/5

      This novel took me a very long time to read, but this was only because it is the first French language novel I have read in many years and I kept on stopping to use the dictionary! The first in a series about a young man investigating murders in Paris in 1761, the mystery is engaging. However, what makes this novel special is the historical setting. Jean-Francois Parot is clearly very familiar with 18th Century Paris and its police and judiciary system. His descriptions of places such as the Chatelet and its environs and the introduction of real-life characters such Royal executioner Charles Henri Sanson bring the period to life. I look forward to reading more novels in the series.
    • 4/5
      Debut historical crime novel set in Paris during the Seven Years' War. The plot is fine, if a little theatrical. What sets this novel apart is its exceptionally rich period detail, mixing low-life grime with insightful hints of higher political intrigues & court subtleties. The characters - whether main or secondary, fictional or historical - are also highly engaging & interesting.
    • 4/5
      A gripping, if convoluted, mystery, but delivered via a rather clunky and slow narrative (possibly a result of the translation). The tension and drama are well-paced, and the forensic element adds a darker touch to the historical Paris setting, but the lead character is a cliche of both the detective and gothic tropes. Maigret meets CSI meets The Castle of Otranto, if that is possible! The second book in the series might be worth a read, to see if the characters improve without the introductory exposition.
    • 3/5
      First in a "newish" series of police procedural novels set in late 18th century Paris. A great premise and background, but I thought that the execution was pedestrian. Interesting and well-researched historical background, but the case is convoluted and rather tedious; I found myself not especially caring how the investigation turned out. The central character Nicholas Le Floch is pretty much a cypher. (He comes straight from the "central casting school" of detectives - very familiar!) Author Jean Francois Parot does give a good sense of the streets and smells of Paris in the 1760s, and the details of judicial punishments in "l'ancien regime" are suitably horrific.
    • 2/5
      I bought this partly because I'm interested in non-Anglo writing, and partly because I'd been reading the Boris Akunin books and mostly enjoyed them. It's a somewhat historical detective story, with plenty of emphasis on the grimier and more distasteful aspects of life.I spent quite a few lunchtimes working my way into it, and found the style difficult to judge. It veers from the grimy details of life into occasional outbursts of foodiness, and is inclined to spend quite a while expositing the protagonist Nicholas' thoughts, feelings and professional development. To be honest I found the latter slightly clumsy at times, with steps in his career being explicitly noted and their impact on his future described. The plot starts off as a confluence of corruption and a murder, but gets political fairly quickly; while it wasn't bad, I never felt particularly fascinated by it or compelled to find out what was going on. Part of the problem is the characterisation, which I found lacking: Nicholas is reasonably detailed, but the other characters felt somewhat one-dimensional and didn't manage to draw me in, which is a problem in a story that focuses so much on the relationships between people, be they personal or professional. I don't know to what extent it's a matter of the French writing simply not coming across so well in English, and to what extent it's the book occupying a hazy middle zone: it doesn't have a fast-paced thriller plot, it doesn't have rich and winning characterisation, and it doesn't sell itself on style and authorial eye alone, but lurks awkwardly between them not winning any prizes.Reaching about the halfway point, I realised that I wasn't particularly interested in the solution to the mystery, that none of the characters especially appealed to me, and that potentially interesting things like Nicholas' youthful romance were getting so little pagetime that they didn't seem likely to produce satisfactory reading either. So I stopped. It's a shame.