Review: Murder on the Eiffel Tower by Claude Izner
Murder on the Eiffel Tower
by Claude Izner
From Amazon.com: The brand-new, shiny Eiffel Tower is the pride and glory of the 1889 World Exposition. But one sunny afternoon, as visitors are crowding the viewing platforms, a woman collapses and dies on this great Paris landmark. Can a bee sting really be the cause of death? Or is there a more sinister explanation? Enter young bookseller Victor Legris. Present on the tower at the time of the incident, and appalled by the media coverage of the occurrence, he is determined to find out what actually happened. In this dazzling evocation of late nineteenth-century Paris, we follow Victor as his investigation takes him all over the city and he suspects an ever-changing list of possible perpetrators. Could mysterious Kenji Mori, his surrogate father and business partner at the bookstore Legris operates, be involved in the crime? Why are beautiful Russian illustrator Tasha and her colleagues at the newly launched sensationalist newspaper Passepartout always up-to-date in their reporting? And what will Legris do when the deaths begin to multiply and he is caught in a race against time?
Murder on the Eiffel Tower is painstakingly researched, an effortless evocation of the glorious City of Light, and an exciting opening to a promising series of eight books featuring Victor Legris.
LAME ON A LAME STICK.
I admit, that was unprofessional of me. But seriously, this was just dumb. Victor Legris is a bumbling fool of an investigator, utterly lacking in stealth and making bad decisions based on unsubstantiated suspicions and ridiculous suppositions. Supposedly he is the owner of an excellent antique book shop, but he is rarely in the shop and leaves all the work to his young assistant. He spends most of the book obsessing over red-headed Tasha, alternating between stalking her, trying to get her clothes off and accusing her of being the murderer. I get the impression that he's supposed to be some sort of debonair French intellectual...but he's really just another unlikeable jerk.
He's only one problem character in poorly envisioned a cast. The author(s) (Claude Izner is the pen name of two sisters) rely on the clichéd, flat characters that populate far too many cheap novels. The red-headed femme fatale. The mysterious mentor. With hackneyed characters, it is little wonder that their relationships don't make sense. Victor Legris is supposed to be very close to his mentor/business partner Kenji Mori, but they are always so stiff and formal that I am reminded of two roommates who hate each other but must tolerate the other person because they can't afford to move out.
The writing is extremely stilted and stiff. It may have been the translator...I would not be surprised of this book was the work of a novice translator, fresh out of school, attempting her first big project. But I'm inclined to think that the weak characters + predictable plot = bad writing on the part of the authors.
Really, this was bad. Skip it. Several times as I was reading I would roll my eyes, close the book and seriously reconsider whether I wanted to bother returning to it. Ultimately, I think the only reason I finished was because I was considering buying the book for my mom for Christmas. But I didn't, because IT IS BAD NEWS, and I would never inflict such poor literature on my dear sweet mother.
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