Rue de la Femme Sans Tête by Jean-Baptiste Evette

Rue de la Femme Sans Tête by Jean-Baptiste Evette

Rue de la Femme-Sans-Tête is kind of a detective story, even if it doesn't share its tropes. The narrator is Apollon Lepic, a man too big, too fat and too clumsy to feel at ease in his own skin. He survives post-divorce in a barely salubrious one-room flat and earns a meagre income from being the commentator on tourist bus tours of Paris. Until one day, when he hears a friend talk about a publisher focused on romanced versions of the sordid crimes of French history. He's thinking of pitching them a project, and spends his spare time in libraries, and that's when he finds his topic: a 16th century noble woman who was decapitated in her own home and whose magical egg was stolen. 

There are two interwoven stories in the book, one a biography, more or less invented by Lepic based on limited historical sources of a 16th century noble woman during the French wars of Religion, and Lepic's own more and more disturbed daily life. The backdrop is that murders are being commited in Paris where women are beheaded! 

I really enjoyed the book, all things considered, and as an added bonus it's a really good inspiration for the Mystères de Paris.