cover image The Paris Labyrinth

The Paris Labyrinth

Gilles Legardinier, trans. from the French by Kate Robinson. Flammarion, $26.95 (440p) ISBN 978-2-08-020674-9

French author Legardinier makes his English-language debut with a pulse-pounding thriller set in 1889 Paris. Vincent, whose last name, age, and residence are a mystery, supports himself by designing secret compartments and passageways for the city’s affluent. After Vincent and his team construct an ultra-secure room in the mansion of an exiled Russian prince, Vincent makes the nobleman an unusual offer: the prince’s bodyguards can kill him if they succeed in finding him in the hidden room, whose location he has yet to reveal to his client. The bodyguards chase Vincent into the house, but he eludes them. Later, a link-chain manufacturer, who has inherited an old house with a locked passage that may have been closed for a century, hires Vincent to access the space. Vincent and his colleagues are soon targeted for death, and he learns that someone knows the truth about his background. A secret society figures into the twisty plot of this atmospheric page-turner, a nice blend of Alexandre Dumas père and Dan Brown. Readers will look forward to more Legardinier translations. (May)