The Black Tower
Louis Bayard, . . Morrow, $24.95 (352pp) ISBN 978-0-06-117350-9
A compelling and sympathetic narrator instantly draws the reader into Bayard’s stellar third historical. In 1818, the notorious Vidocq, a master detective who’s rumored to work on both sides of the law, pulls 26-year-old Parisian doctor Hector Carpentier into a torture-murder inquiry. The victim, Chrétien Leblanc, died without revealing that he was on his way to visit Carpentier, news that comes as a complete shock to the doctor, as the dead man was a stranger to him. Vidocq soon discovers that Leblanc was actually in search of Carpentier’s late father, who bore the same name. The elder Carpentier cared for Louis-Charles, Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette’s young son, who died in prison in 1795. Bayard keeps the reader guessing until the end, though the puzzle aspect is less prominent than in his previous novel,
Reviewed on: 07/21/2008
Genre: Fiction