Baudelaire’s Revenge
Paris, September 1870. The city is trembling on its foundations as war threatens to break out. The first Prussian grenades strike the beleaguered city. The workers are starving, while the aristocracy takes refuge in orgies and séances. The inhabitants of Paris are trapped like rats but are enthralled by a series of horrific murders that makes them forget the realities of war: on each of the bodies, lines are found from The Flowers of Evil, the controversial collection of poems by the recently deceased poet Charles Baudelaire.
A superb historical tale of an embattled cityThe Irish Times
Someone has taken it upon themselves to take revenge on the poet’s enemies. Inspector Lefèvre’s detective work puts him on the trail of a conspiracy that reaches as far as the court of Emperor Napoleon III. And a family secret with far-reaching consequences.
‘Baudelaire’s Revenge’ is a literary thriller that brings to life a tumultuous period in French history in a masterly and evocative way: far from pretty and poetic, but raw and plausible.
A wonderful and believable portrait of the period, through the medium of an intelligently constructed crime storyDe Morgen
A blood-curdling descent into the hell of evil, betrayal, deception, revenge and retributionDe Volkskrant
