by Kirsty Manning
I love a mystery set in the 1930s, and what fun to visit Paris instead of London or New York! Charlie James, looking to escape a failed marriage in her hometown of Sydney, has pulled up stakes and moved to France. The chief of The Times’ Paris bureau, having hired her believing she’s a man, decides to give her a chance. She’s assigned to cover the ball of the season, Lord and Lady Ashworth’s Circus Ball, and finds herself in the right place at the right time to get a sensational scoop on the murder of a prominent banker.
Likes: I enjoyed the friendship between Violet and Charlie; it’s always nice to find a pair of female detectives on the page, even if Violet doesn’t get much credit in the story for her contributions to the investigation. The cast of supporting characters is full of convincing red herrings and a few characters based on real-life people (Lady Ashworth is immediately recognizable as a doppelganger of Elsie de Wolfe). My favorite bits, it must be said, are the descriptions of the clothes! Having a character serve as an employee of Mainbocher is quite fun. Like Charlie, I would have been unable to turn down a free gown!
Dislikes: Some bits verged on melodrama. The pace of this book is uneven, and I found some of the scenes, like a drunken scavenger hunt and a flashback to Charlie’s old life in Sydney, unnecessary. The sex scenes were a bit more explicit than what I expect to find in a cozy title. I also found the final scene hard to swallow. This was a fairly entertaining read but, like the title, didn’t strike me as unique or memorable.
FYI: murder, violence, sexual assault, infidelity. References to parental abandonment and death of parents.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my advance copy. All opinions are my own.
Photo credits: The images of Mainbocher fashions are shown in the books The Windsor Style by Suzy Menkes (left) and Haute Couture: The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Richard Martin and Harold Koda (right).
Liz Helfrich 