The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley

 

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley.

Published 3rd march 2022 by Harper Fiction.

From the cover of the book:

Welcome to No.12 rue des Amants...

A beautiful old apartment block, far from the glittering lights of the Eiffel Tower and the bustling banks of the Seine. Where nothing goes unseen, and everyone has a story to unlock.

The watchful concierge.
The scorned lover.
The prying journalist.
The naïve student.
The unwanted guest.

There was a murder here last night.

A mystery lies behind the door of apartment three.
Who holds the key?

******************

Jess has always been in the shadow of her more fortunate half-sibling Ben, who managed to escape the care system for a life with a wealthy adopted family. Ben is now working in Paris as an investigative journalist, while Jess finds herself at her lowest ebb in a poorly paid job on the south coast of England. When she gets into trouble, he is the only person she can turn to for help. However, when Jess arrives at the beautiful apartment block where Ben lives, she finds he is not there, despite assuring her that he would be. The only clue she has to his fate is a voice message that cuts off in a very troubling way. 

Jess may be a fish out of water in Paris, but she does her best to follow the trail Ben has left behind, and what she discovers has her worried. The other residents of the apartment building are hostile from the start - their stories do not seem to add up, and she does not know who she can trust. She becomes convinced that something bad has happened to Ben, but can she uncover the dark secrets of the people who live in this building before she suffers the same fate?

The story is told in multiple narratives from Jess and the other residents of this elegant, and seriously eerie Paris apartment block. From the glamorous Parisian wife Sophie in the penthouse, down through the floors to the unstable young Mimi on the fourth floor, Ben's old friend Nick on the second floor, and the volatile Antoine on the first floor, everyone seems to have something to hide - even the eccentric, elderly concierge in her strange little loge in the courtyard. There is the constant, menacing feeling that Jess is being watched, and Ben's apartment on the third floor is no sanctuary from the danger that haunts the halls, stairwells, and cave-like cellar.

As is Foley's forte, the pieces of this mystery come together very gradually with the shocking truth hitting you with considerable force in the latter stages of the novel. Each narrative has something to add not just in terms of the recent history of the characters, but also their past dysfunctional relationships with each other, and the revelations set you reeling as they take you into country filled with intrigue, passion, revenge and twisted group dynamics.  

The premise is deliciously ambitious this time around, bursting out of the more character-led murder-mystery that I have come to expect from Foley. This book cleverly incorporates a claustrophobic mystery of the kind she does so well, via the old apartment block in all its faded grandeur, but it also pushes things up a notch by interweaving these elements with exciting scenes that take you on a caper through highly charged and atmospheric Parisian streets filled with rioters during a stifling summer. I really enjoyed how this moves the story along and serves to change the tempo between slow-burn and fast-paced thriller as you swap back and forth between settings - somehow combining a bit of Hitchcock with a contemporary action adventure tale.

I read this book in one single, gripping session. It manages to cram in all the tension and flawed interpersonal relationships you could wish for in a psychological thriller, with the added dose of brain-wracking whodunnit that is very heavy on the compelling mystery side. Definitely Foley's finest book to date!

The Paris Apartment is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats now.

Thank you to Harper Fiction for sending me a hard cover copy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in this blog tour.

About the author:

Lucy Foley is the No.1 Sunday Times bestselling author of The Hunting Party and The Guest List, with two and a half million copies sold worldwide. Lucy’s thrillers have also hit the New York Times and the Irish Times bestseller lists, been shortlisted for the Crime & Thriller Book of the Year Award at the British Book Awards, selected as one of The Times and Sunday Times Crime Books of the Year, and The Guest List was a Reese’s Book Club choice. Lucy’s novels have been translated into multiple languages and her journalism has appeared in publications such as Sunday Times Style, Grazia, ES Magazine, Vogue US, Elle, Tatler, Marie Claire and more.