The City of Blood- Review & Giveaway

My Thoughts 

Art is subjective. While there are some art that maybe loved universally, there are many that are loved by some and are controversial and questionable to others. When Artists yearn for immortality and being displayed in Galleries is never going to be enough. Once they reach the heights of fame in their artistic career, immortality through their art is something they court with. How to be remembered beyond your time? We bury time capsules for posterity. Why not bury an entire banquet in one of the important landmarks in Paris? That's what artist Samuel Cassian did in the eighties in the 'City of Blood', former slaughterhouse area in Paris in this instalment of Paris Homicide novels. Now decades later it is time to dig up the past and find out what remains of the banquet. And what did they dig up? Remains, alright but, remains of a dead person who seemed to be buried along with the banquet. Who was he/she? How did that person end up buried in this banquet? What is that person's connection to the Banquet? Samuel Cassian yearned for immortality and here is the kind of macabre immortality that people would remember for years. Well when you bury something in the City of Blood, you would expect to see some bones, wouldn't you? 

Nico Sirsky is in-charge of the case. Will he find the answers? Nico's mother is hospitalised and Nico makes a pact with himself, that his mother would survive the crisis if he find the truth about the remains in the buried banquet. Will he keep his end of the promise and his mother survive? 

The City of Blood is a short and interesting police procedural that could be read in a few hours. Like the earlier novel in the series 'Crossing the Line', this novel also has an interesting setting 'The city of blood', formerly abattoir of the City, and invokes the place with interesting information. 

 I do like my twists and turns and the final surprise that authors spring on us. While the police procedural is interesting, after a point finding the killer is straightforward, I was hoping there would be a final surprise. Having said that, Nico is an interesting character and I wouldn't mind getting further acquainted with him. Flesh and Bones in the City of Blood! 

Author Frédérique Molay

on Tour

January 15 – February 3

with

The City of Blood

[police procedural / thriller]

(translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman)

Release date: January 20, 2015
at Le French Book

212 pages

ISBN: 978-1939474186


Website | Goodreads

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SYNOPSIS

When a major Parisian modern art event gets unexpected attention on live TV, Chief of Police Nico Sirsky and his team of elite crime fighters rush to La Villette park and museum complex. There, renowned artist Samuel Cassian is inaugurating the first archeological dig of modern art, twenty-seven years after burying the leftovers of a banquet. In front of reporters from around the world, excavators uncover a skeleton. Could it be the artist’s own son? And does that death have anything to do with the current string of nightclub murders by the “Paris Butcher”? On the site of the French capital’s former slaughterhouses, the investigation takes Nico and France’s top criminal investigation division from artists’ studios to autopsy theaters and nightclubs in hopes of tracking down the murderer who has turned this Paris park into a city of blood. [provided by the publisher]

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Called, “the French Michael Connelly,” Frédérique Molay graduated from France’s prestigious Science Po and began her career in politics and the French administration. She worked as chief of staff for the deputy mayor of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and then was elected to the local government in Saône-et-Loire. Meanwhile, she spent her nights pursing a passion for writing she had nourished since she wrote her first novel at the age of eleven. The first in the Paris Homicide series, The 7th Woman, won France’s most prestigious crime fiction award and went on to become an international bestseller, allowing Molay to dedicate her life to writing and raising her three children.

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ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Jeffrey Zuckerman was born in the Midwest and lives in New York. He has worked as an editorial assistant, a lifeguard, and a psychology researcher. Now an editor for Music and Literature Magazine, he also freelances for several companies, ranging from the pharmaceutical industry to old-fashioned book publishing. He holds a degree in English with honors from Yale University, where he studied English literature, creative writing, and translation.

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