FREE: The Bones of Paris, by Laurie R. King

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Paperback, Like New condition
5.0 out of 5 stars: Like many of the old settlements
Amazon Review By George W.on February 15, 2015
Like many of the old settlements of Europe, Paris is a city built, literally and figuratively, upon its own bones: too much history over too many centuries adds up to too many bodies. What’s a responsible municipal government supposed to do about that?

Holy Innocents Cemetery had its roots in 12th Century Paris and became over the years the final resting place for well over two million Parisians, not all of whom, of course, died a gentle death.

This is the challenge that investigator Harris Stuyvesant faces in his search for the missing Philippa (“Pip”) Crosby. Stuyvesant had had a brief affair with the young woman and now is hired by her family to find her. He hopes against hope that Pip’s bones are not among the myriad of unclaimed and unidentified bones at Holy Innocents and other Parisian cemeteries.
The Jazz Age was also the age of prohibition back in America and the age of winding down from the shock and horror and carnage of the Great War. Those veterans who had survived the War were tired of death but the artists of Paris seemed to have made a cult of it. Man Ray with his delectable mistress Kiki and others contributed to the fame of the Grand-Guignol Theater where murder, suicide and sexual perversion were dominant among the themes presented. Stuyvesant realizes that if Pip Crosby had fallen under the influence of some of these deviant personalities then, indeed, all hope is lost.
This was one of my first “voyages” on the good ship Kindle and my first experience with Laurie King’s writing. If this book is typical, she’s got talent. It is a compelling story well-told and one that I found impossible to stop reading.