The Hanged Man

June 6, 2016
Set in 1890, Inbinder’s talky follow-up to 2014’s The Devil in Montmatre takes Insp. Achille Lefebvre to a crime scene in Paris’s Parc des Buttes-Chaumont. Hanging from the park’s so-called suicide bridge is a man with a Biblical verse about Judas’s betrayal and suicide, written in Cyrillic, pinned to his jacket. Achille learns from a Russian acquaintance of his, who translates the note, that the victim is a Russian emigrant involved in anarchist circles. Determining that the death is murder rather than suicide, Achille deploys a network of spies and informers from Paris’s underworld and works uneasily with an unreliable former colleague, now in the political division of the Paris police force, to uncover the violent terrorist network of which the murder is only an offshoot. Intriguing period details and personalities, notably the artist Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, enrich the plot. Unfortunately, Inbinder reveals the hanging’s perpetrators early on and elucidates most plot points through explanation rather than dramatization. As a result, both the investigation and the conspiracy lack suspense. Agent: Lukas Ortiz, Philip Spitzer Agency.

June 15, 2016
His latest case could be Inspector Achille Lefebvre's finest hour, if it isn't his last.Of course, the body hanging off Suicide Bridge in the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont looks at first like a suicide. But Lefebvre (The Devil in Montmartre, 2014), versed as he is in the most modern forensic science 1890 can boast, has his photographer, Gilles, take shots of the note pinned to the body, and voila--the fingerprints on the corpse fail to match those on the note. The Cyrillic script on the note sends him to Mme. Nazimova, a Russian bookseller connected to Paris's Slavic community. She identifies the deceased as Lev Dmitryevich Kadyshev, a Russian emigre with ties to known anarchists Peter Kropotkin and Louise Michel. His landlady admits that Kadyshev spent his evenings at the Lapin Agile in Montmartre with "a group of like-minded individuals." One of those individuals, Viktor Boguslavsky, is a chemist with access to an explosive his compatriots could use in mass bombings. So Lefebvre must leave the safety of the city walls through the Porte de Clignancourt to ask his most trusted unofficial deputy, famed outlaw Le Boudin, to set his silent, nearly invisible chiffoniers on the trail of the shadowy Russians. Out of respect for Lefebvre, the thief even offers his daughter, the prostitute Delphine, to help infiltrate the terrorist cell. Will the Inspector risk Delphine's life along with his own to save half of Paris from being blown to bits? A case every bit as baffling as the hero's debut. Here's hoping for another entry in this atmospheric series.

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

June 1, 2016
Inspector Achille Lefebvre's second case, following The Devil in Montmartre (2014), begins with the shocking discovery of a body dangling from a well-tied noose on a historic bridge in Parc des Buttes-Chaumont. Such a violent death in fin de siecle Paris poses many possible causes involving multiple suspects, due to political unrest following the Franco-Prussian War, a Communist insurgency and the attendant menace of the Russian Okhrana, plus the continuing divide between the haves and have-nots. Although the case comes at an awkward time for Achille, he diligently applies all available technologyfingerprinting, hidden cameras, and occasionally even the telephoneand personnel (including his much-disliked ex-partner, Rousseau) in solving the case. Inbinder assumes familiarity with 1890s Paris, especially its art and nightclub scene, and with the French language, leaving French words, phrasessometimes entire sentencessprinkled liberally every page or two, without translation, which can be frustrating for English-language readers, perhaps blocking a richer understanding of the story. Still, there is much to enjoy here in a tale that is similar to Claude Izner's Victor Legris mysteries, with their detailed historical Paris setting, well-developed characters, and red herrings galore.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)