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Overview
"Vidocq. The name strikes terror in the Parisian underworld of 1818. As founder and chief of a newly created plainclothes police force, Vidocq has used his mastery of disguise and surveillance to capture some of France's most notorious and elusive criminals. Now he is hot on the trail of a tantalizing mystery - the fate of the young dauphin Louis-Charles, son of Marie-Antoinette and King Louis XVI." "Hector Carpentier, a medical student, lives with his widowed mother in her once-genteel home, now a boardinghouse, in Paris's Latin Quarter, helping the family make ends meet in the politically perilous days of the restoration. Three blocks away,a man has been murdered, and Hector's name has been found on a scrap of paper in the dead man's pocket: a case for the unparalleled deductive skills of Eugene Francois Vidocq, the most feared man in the Paris police. At first suspicious of Hector's role in the murder, Vidocq gradually draws him into an exhilarating - and dangerous - search that leads them to the true story of what happened to the son of the murdered royal family." "Officially, the Dauphin died a brutal death in Paris's dreaded Temple - a menacing black tower from which there could have been no escape - but speculation has long persisted that the ten-year-old heir may have been smuggled out of his prison cell. When Hector and Vidocq stumble across a man with no memory of who he is, they begin to wonder if he is the Dauphin himself, come back from the dead. Their suspicions deepen with the discovery of a diary that reveals Hector's own shocking link to the boy in the tower - and leaves him bound and determined to see justice done, no matter the cost." In The Black Tower, LouisBayard interweaves political intrigue, epic treachery, cover-ups, and conspiracies into a portrait of family redemption - and brings to life an indelible portrait of the mighty and profane Eugene Francois Vidocq, history's first great detective.Synopsis
Vidocq! Master of disguise and chief of a newly created plainclothes police force, Vidocq is a man whose name sends terror rippling through the Parisian underworld of 1818—and the inconsequential life of Hector Carpentier is violently shaken when Vidocq storms into it. A former medical student living in his mother's Latin Quarter boardinghouse, Hector finds himself dragged into a dangerous mystery surrounding the fate of the dauphin, the ten-year-old son of King Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette presumed to have suffered a cruel death years earlier in Paris's dreaded Temple. But the truth of what happened may be even more shocking—and it will fall to an aimless young man and the most feared detective in Paris to see justice done for a frightened little boy in a black tower . . . no matter what the cost.
The Barnes & Noble Review
Writers of historical fiction are often faced with a problem: if they include real-life people, how do they ensure that their make-believe world isn't dwarfed by truth? The question loomed large as I began reading The Black Tower, Louis Bayard's third foray into historical fiction and fifth novel overall. He had already pulled off the conceit of recasting Timothy Cratchit from Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol as a Victorian-era sleuth in Mr. Timothy (2003), and succeeded in depicting Edgar Allan Poe as a young, petulant West Point attendee in The Pale Blue Eye (2006), justly nominated for Poe's namesake award. So learning that The Black Tower revolves in large part around the exploits of Eugène François Vidocq (1757-1856) increased my already high expectations, not to mention commensurate worries.
Editorials
Booklist
"In addition to the many fine, quirky character portraits and the visceral depiction of a chaotic France still reeling under the regime change, Bayard offers a rip-roaring plot full of smart and funny turns."Entertainment Weekly
"Delicious. [Bayard] inbues(s) his characters with real soul. You may find yourself, more than two centuries after the fact, aching over the fate of the pitiful young Dauphin. A-"Matthew Pearl
"The Black Tower breathes life into the world’s first police detective, Vidocq, a literary feat that happily waited for this novelist. As the gripping and nuanced story races through the parlor rooms and back alleys of Paris, Bayard shows why he is at the forefront of literary historical fiction today."Christian Science Monitor
"A tale that has as much energy and cunning as the detective propelling it forward."Washington Post
"Bayard is a fearlessly confident writer. We are treated to all of the narrative verve and sly wit—both plot twists and turns of phrase—that make his books such a pleasure to read."Miami Herald
"Bayard doesn’t revisit the past so much as reinvent it, historically and literarily, with a great deal of style, wit and suspense. Dark, surprising and Bayard’s best example so far of a lean and accessible historical thriller."New York Times Book Review
"Louis Bayard repairs to Paris for another daring historical adventure. Bayard makes brilliant application of Vidocq in the fanciful adventure. No snatchandrun researcher, Bayard takes care to capture Vidocq’s roguish voice and grandiose affectations."Wall Street Journal
"Louis Bayard finds fictional inspiration in historical fact. He has emerged as a writer of historical thrillers in the vein of Caleb Carr, author of The Alienist, and 19th century writers such as Alexandre Dumas, author of The Count of Monte Christo."Creative Loafing
"Top-notch historical fiction. Bayard’s is the kind of popular fiction readers are thrilled to discover: equal parts effective plotting, lean but distinctive prose and characters and dialogue that brim with life from the outset. A royally entertaining read."Rocky Mountain News
"In his fast-moving tale, Bayard deftly places details to make history come alive."Louisville Courier Journal
"A fascinating detective story about one of the world’s most compelling mysteries. Bayard’s scholarly and beautiful, heart-stopping prose always keeps before us the possibility of an improbability - what mystery is all about."USA Today
"In the world of historical fiction, Louis Bayard is a master at blending history into intelligent thrillers."Marilyn Stasio
Bayard makes brilliant application of Vidocq in this fanciful adventure…No snatch-and-run researcher, Bayard takes care to capture Vidocq's roguish voice and grandiose affectations, as well as the melodramatic substance of his published memoirs.—The New York Times
Ross King
…a clever follow-on from his two previous historical thrillers, Mr. Timothy and The Pale Blue Eye. Like them, The Black Tower weaves history and fiction together in the trademark style—linguistic brio, a slickly unfolding plot, a raft of colorful characters—that has propelled Bayard's work into the upper reaches of the historical-thriller league…In Bayard's hands, Vidocq becomes an arrogant, bullying, wine-swilling, foul-smelling underworld spy and master of disguise—and an utterly compelling character.—The Washington Post
Publishers Weekly
Occasionally, a brilliant audio can improve upon the print original. Simon Vance's skillful enactment of a cast the size of Balzac's The Human Comedy is a joy. The characters include the credibly naïve and incredibly good bourgeois narrator, Dr. Hector Carpentier; several members of the royal family; and, of course, the servants, soldiers and government hacks that form the majority of the populace. Most amazing is Vance's portrayal of Vidocq, a criminal turned police inspector. A master of masquerade, Vidocq takes on many disguises, complemented here by unique voices. When uncloaked, Vance returns Vidocq to his natural speech, a sort of East Ender drawl. Vance smartly avoids pasting French accents onto the characters. The pace is perfect, as Vance skillfully swirls the reader through a complex Restoration plot that is sure to please. A Morrow hardcover (Reviews, July 21). (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Library Journal
Making his Morrow debut, Bayard (The Pale Blue Eye) sets his latest historical adventure in the streets of Paris as the blood lust of the revolution subsides. It is 1818 when Vidocq, a former convict and the (real-life) founder of the newly created plainclothes investigative force known as the Sûreté, tracks down obscure medical student Hector Carpentier, whose name was found in the pocket of a dead man. As they work through the clues together, they move from the slums of Paris out to the royal gardens of Saint-Cloud. The duo soon realizes that the murders they are investigating may be connected to the whereabouts of Marie Antoinette's lost son, said to have died in the Black Tower. Then they conclude that they might have found the lost prince. As Vidocq and Carpentier fight to keep him alive, they face a dark cover-up and evil alliances that will shape the history of France. Bayard's well-crafted mix of history and suspense keeps this novel from getting bogged down in historical trivia. Recommended for all libraries. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/08.]
—Ron Samul
Kirkus Reviews
Having previously channeled Dickens and Poe, historical novelist Bayard (The Pale Blue Eye, 2006, etc.) throws down the gauntlet to Dumas in another high-energy melodrama. Set in early-19th-century Paris and environs, the book recounts the life-changing experience of medical student Hector Carpentier, who's enlisted by celebrated police detective Eugene Vidocq (a real historical figure) to follow clues suggesting that members of the recently restored Bourbon monarchy known to have been executed by the Jacobins who overthrew them did not include the Dauphin Louis-Charles, younger son of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. A scrap of paper bearing Hector's name, a meeting with a down-at-heels baroness and an astonishing accretion of details concerning the late M. Carpentier pere, who had himself pursued a medical career, enable Vidocq to persuade the initially disbelieving Hector that his humble father, an artisan of no particular accomplishment, "might have rubbed shoulders with a Bourbon or two." Dastardly plots, thrilling last-minute rescues and escapes, the destruction by fire of the boardinghouse run by Hector's stoical mother and the mystery surrounding the docile man-child, who may be the one who might be king, are cast together in a whirligig narrative whose impertinent momentum never flags (despite the appearances of enough red herrings to overpopulate a sizable sea). Young Carpentier is a perfectly suitable unwilling (and quite sensibly unheroic) hero, and the ego-driven, Rabelaisian Vidocq drags the story along by his flaring coattails, never fearing any challenges to his wit and resourcefulness (his eccentric jocosity, however, often feels forced). The novel's witty successionof trapdoor endings, culminating (we think) in "the quietest of abdications," keeps surprising us long after it seems Bayard's plot has nowhere else to go. Who says they don't write 'em like this anymore? Long may Bayard reign. Agent: Christopher Schelling/Ralph M. VicinanzaBooklist (starred review)
“In addition to the many fine, quirky character portraits and the visceral depiction of a chaotic France still reeling under the regime change, Bayard offers a rip-roaring plot full of smart and funny turns.”The Barnes & Noble Review
Writers of historical fiction are often faced with a problem: if they include real-life people, how do they ensure that their make-believe world isn't dwarfed by truth? The question loomed large as I began reading The Black Tower, Louis Bayard's third foray into historical fiction and fifth novel overall. He had already pulled off the conceit of recasting Timothy Cratchit from Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol as a Victorian-era sleuth in Mr. Timothy (2003), and succeeded in depicting Edgar Allan Poe as a young, petulant West Point attendee in The Pale Blue Eye (2006), justly nominated for Poe's namesake award. So learning that The Black Tower revolves in large part around the exploits of Eugène Fran?ois Vidocq (1757-1856) increased my already high expectations, not to mention commensurate worries.For Vidocq, the high-flying, outsized founder of the Sûreté Nationale, arguably the first formal police service, is a slippery figure. His transformation from petty criminal to detective grew out of a need to escape a life on the run and inform on other criminals. His contributions to detection are legion, from making plaster casts of shoe impressions to ballistics examination, contrasting his philandering nature and enigmatic personality. Vidocq came off so larger-than-life in his 1827 autobiography (helped by the embellishments of his ghost writer) that it's little wonder he served as the inspiration for Poe's landmark detective protagonist C. Auguste Dupin -- and possibly warded off writers aspiring to make something of his exploits.
Just as Bayard relegated Poe to a supporting role in The Pale Blue Eye, he makes the same smart decision about Vidocq. As seen through the eyes of young medical student Hector Carpentier, The Black Tower's seemingly naïve, unformed narrator, Vidocq circa 1818 is a man of many facets, but his investigative acumen is in sharp focus:
Legend has it that if you give Vidocq two or three details surrounding a given crime, he will give you back the man who did it -- before you've had time to blink. More than that, he'll describe the man for you, give you his most recent address, name all his known conspirators, tell you his favorite cheese. So compendious is his memory that a full half of Paris imagines him to be omniscient and wonders if his powers weren't given to him by Satan...
And yet he is doing God's work, is he not? To hear the papers tell it, Vidocq, in the space of a few years, has sent hundreds of malefactors to prison. The ones that remain abroad cross themselves at the sound of his name. If a robbery falls apart at the last minute, it's Vidocq's doing. If a credulous old widow manages, against all odds, to keep her jewels, blame it on the scoundrel Vidocq. If an innocent man lives to see another morrow, who's behind it? The accursed Vidocq, that's who.
Carpentier's first encounter with Vidocq arises out of a hard-earned lesson: "never let your name be found in a dead man's trousers." The dead man in question is one Monsieur Leblanc, a man Carpentier never met; he was murdered before he could pass on a startling bit of news to the young man. Vidocq picks up the scent early and co-opts Carpentier into his fledgling investigation, teaching the young man a second lesson when he dares to make inquiries on his own: "in the act of being caught, he manages to catch you."
The inauspicious start gives way to genuine teamwork as Vidocq and Carpentier follow the clues of Leblanc's murder to the home of a baroness, where they discover a watch with missing letters and uncover the startling news that Louis-Charles, the young son of guillotined monarchs Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, may not have died at the Bastille after all. Such news would throw the fate of France, current and future, into chaos, especially at a time, post-Revolution, post-Napoleon, that Carpentier refers to as a "great forgetting."
The weight of its subject might have plunged a lesser novel into the quagmire of the political conspiracy thriller, but Bayard keeps a light hand, choosing character over exposition at every moment. Supporting players -- including Carpentier's mother; her buffoon-like boarders, with evocative names like Rosbif and Lapin; and Vidocq's love interest, Jeanne-Victoire -- are rendered with care, minimal description providing maximum insight into their flaws and how they help or hinder the mystery at hand. Even the seeming villains are graced with morally ambiguous natures, mirroring Vidocq's transition from criminal to detective.
Naturally, Bayard focuses Vidocq with the most care, emphasizing not only the man's formidable skills but his growing acceptance of Carpentier's own improving prospects. "You're thinking like a policeman," Vidocq says approvingly, "When I remember what a timid little sod you were just a couple of weeks back, scared of your own voice, and now look at you, with your grand, beautiful theories!" The praise is cut mercifully short, as Vidocq retreats to enigmatic baseline (when the subject of heart comes up, he replies, "I've got one of those myself. I keep it in a box somewhere") but the point is made: through partnership and complementary skills the duo is more likely to uncover the truth about what really happened to the Dauphin -- even if that very knowledge forces them to question assumptions about the country, those they care about, and each other.
Once the twists are revealed -- Bayard has a special knack for surprising the reader at a book's close -- and the shocks fade away, giving way to mordant humor (one of the closing images is of a middle-aged Carpentier subjecting an older Vidocq to a rectal examination, provoking a host of layered significance for the reader), The Black Tower remains haunted by the specter of memory and why total erasure is impossible. "In the end," Carpentier ruminates, "there is no forgetting. History lies low but always rises up." To neglect history is to ignore it and suffer the consequences. But to write about it, to take salient points about a particular time and place and character and create both an engaging mystery that provokes the reader, is to ensure a positive feedback loop of remembering that solves the problem posed at the beginning of this review. The make-believe world of The Black Tower succeeds by broadcasting larger truths that might otherwise elude us. --Sarah Weinman
Sarah Weinman reviews crime fiction for the Los Angeles Times and the Baltimore Sun and blogs about the genre at Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind (http://www.sarahweinman.com).