cover image Carousel

Carousel

J. Robert Janes. Dutton Books, $20 (287pp) ISBN 978-1-55611-357-4

In a plot that escalates from tricky to ridiculous, Janes's two heroes keep themselves going with benzedrine, but readers are more likely to feel dizzy. In occupied Paris in late 1942, Surete Chief Inspector Jean-Louis St-Cyr and his Gestapo partner Capt. Hermann Kohler, paired before in Mirage, investigate the grisly murders of a carousel operator and, nearby, a young ``artist's model.'' Then a German soldier is murdered in the same neighborhood, hostages are taken by the Nazis, leaving Louis and Hermann to race against time to solve the mystery and save the hostages. The French Resistance registers a mere whisper against the roaring machinations of the Gestapo, SS, Abwehr, rival French gangs, collaborators and profiteers. A cast that includes a Nazi necrophiliac, a sinning young priest, a crazed French veteran and assorted sleazeballs moves through some artful set pieces that lead to the final, hard-to-believe revelations with all suspects gathered at the carousel. Occasional patches of impressionistic writing and stream-of-consciousness ruminations don't make the cardboard characters any more convincing. (May)