Amateur sleuth / Parisian bookseller Victor Legris returns in a darker, highly atmospheric dive into 1890s spiritualism and global scandal.
In this thrilling second installment of the beloved Paris Bookshop Mysteries series, Legris investigates a mysterious disappearance from a tomb at the Père-Lachaise Cemetery.
“Brilliantly evokes 1890s Paris, a smoky, sinister world full of predatory mediums and a ghoulish public, in a cracking, highly satisfying yarn.” —Guardian
Paris, 1890. A young lady’s maid, Denise le Louarn, fears the worst when her mistress, Odette de Valois, vanishes from the Père Lachaise cemetery during a visit to her husband’s grave. All alone in the great metropolis, Denise knows just one person she can go to for help: Odette’s former lover, Victor Legris.
It’s been less than a year since Victor took to the streets of Paris to unmask a devilish serial killer, and he’d hoped to quietly return to running the Elzevir Bookshop in peace; not to mention focus on his new relationship with the painter and cartoonist Tasha Kherson.
When this frightened lady’s maid turns up at his bookshop and tells him her story, Victor feels there must be a simple explanation for the vanishing at Père Lachaise. But as he begins to look into the matter, it soon becomes clear that something sinister lies behind these events. The death of Odette’s husband, for one, is unexplained. And what of the grave robber who’s watching every movement in this secretive cemetery?
The second standalone installment of the bestselling Paris Bookshop Mysteries, The Vanishing at Père Lachaise is a wildly entertaining puzzle that transports the reader to a beautifully evoked Belle Epoque Paris.
