This book is set in a splendid landmark apartment building in Montmartre, the kind you see as a tourist and dream of living in.
The story is told chapter by chapter by the main characters and starts with Ben, a freelance journalist, who has been fortunate in securing a strangely cheap apartment here, thanks to an old friend and fellow tenant Nick. We know Ben is up to something; the problem is, so does someone else, and the story opens with Ben confronting someone he clearly fears. Not long after, Ben’s half-sister, Jess, arrives on his doorstep. She is fleeing life in London, and has no money, but is astonished that Ben is not there to let her in. After all, he left a voice mail saying he would be waiting for her and, although their relationship has been strained at times, he has never let her down. She gets into his apartment, and worried, begins the search for him.
The other tenants, a wealthy couple in the cavernous penthouse, an unpleasant and intense man with a flirtatious wife, Ben’s university friend Nick and a naive teenager and party girl friend, all seem as if they are hiding something, but what?
This is very atmospheric and clever, dripping with creeping dread as the mystery unravels, with each character revealing a little more of themselves and what might have happened. The building and all things Parisian are very much a part of the story, making me miss travel and all its wonderful charms and challenges. This isn’t great literature but it is great fun.
Reviewed by Lesley West
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lucy Foley studied English Literature at Durham and UCL universities. She then worked for several years as a fiction editor in the publishing industry – during which time she wrote The Book of Lost and Found, which was a bestselling debut of 2015.
Lucy now writes full-time, with her crime novels The Hunting Party and The Guest List being published in 2018 and 2020 respectively to critical acclaim.
Her newest novel, The Paris Apartment, instantly took the number one spot on The New York Times bestseller list. It has sold in over 40 territories and the movie rights have been acquired by Sony.
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