Baudelaire’s Revenge
Bob Van Laerhoven
Format: Kindle Edition
★★★★★ 5 stars
Dark and Compelling Tale of Mystery and Murder
In the world of 1870s Paris, wars are being fought on many fronts – France versus Prussia, the aristocracy versus the underprivileged, the police versus criminals felonious and petty. Police commissioner Lefevre seeks his respite in the arms of ladies of the night, and in one such venture, stumbles upon a murder that for Lefevre, commences a war against the forces of darkness and his own sanity.
At the heart of the story is the poet Charles Baudelaire, three years dead, a controversial figure for rejecting romanticism and influencing a generation of French poets. The murder Lefevre happens upon is linked to the dead poet. It’s an investigation that takes Lefevre and the reader on a unforgettable journey.
Baudelaire’s Revenge is a beautifully dark tale of many threads of history, philosophy, gastronomy and crime expertly interwoven. The author’s gift of vivid imagery expertly told transports the reader to Africa, the Orient and back to Paris’ mansions and gutters. Mysticism, idealism, incest, fraud and murder abound. It is a rich, gritty, novel ablaze with historic and literary detail that keeps the reader guessing, and entertained, to the last.
Joseph Mark Brewer is the author of the Shig Sato Mystery series. You’re invited to visit www.josephmarkbrewer.com and his page at Goodreads
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