L'Affaire des Corps sans Tête by Jean-Christophe Portes
Oh boy did I suffer with this one. I have to admit that my track record of Paris based historical crime novels isn't very good. Of the four I read recently, one was OK, one was not very good, one was really bad, and this one is by far the worst of the four. It's set during the French revolution, in 1791/92 and its only redeeming feature (at least early on in the novel) is the depiction of revolutionary Paris. The crime investigation and the lead character don't intersect until more than halfway through the novel, with a massive and frankly unbelievable Deus ex Machina, as if the author had belatedly realised that he'd written a different half of a novel than what he'd sold his editor. As a crime novel, l'Affaire des Corps sans Têtes is an absolute clusterfuck, in fact a masterclass on everything you must not do when writing a crime novel. As a historical novel, it breaks down when you realise that the author insists on having his lead character meet with absolutely everyone who is anyone in revolutionary France. And of course, spoiler alert, guess who spots the King fleeing in Varennes?
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