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    The Bones of Paris
    The Bones of Paris
    The Bones of Paris
    Audiobook13 hours

    The Bones of Paris

    Written by Laurie R. King

    Narrated by Jefferson Mays

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    New York Times bestselling author Laurie R. King garners widespread acclaim for her suspenseful novels rich with historical detail. Set in the vibrant Paris Jazz Age, The Bones of Paris introduces private investigator Harris Stuyvesant, an American agent who' s been given the plum assignment of locating beautiful young model Philippa Crosby. But when Philippa' s trail ends at the ThEAtre du Grand-Guignol in Montmartre, Stuyvesant discovers a world where art meets sexual depravity-- and where a savage killer lurks in the shadows.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateSep 10, 2013
    ISBN9781501992469
    The Bones of Paris
    Author

    Laurie R. King

    Laurie R. King is the Edgar Award–winning author of the Kate Martinelli novels and the acclaimed Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes mysteries, as well as a few stand-alone novels. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, the first in her Mary Russell series, was nominated for an Agatha Award and was named one of the Century’s Best 100 Mysteries by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. A Monstrous Regiment of Women won the Nero Wolfe Award. She has degrees in theology, and besides writing she has also managed a coffee store and raised children, vegetables, and the occasional building. She lives in northern California.

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    Reviews for The Bones of Paris

    3.5/5

    227 ratings57 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Not quite as entertaining as the first collection of stories. There's no doubt that the Mowgli stories are the best.
    • 5/5
      I was completely captivated by these stories. This is a book I could not put down.
    • 4/5
      The book appears to be written for children, but this can be misleading. The story is so much more of than fiction. The author hints at this when he includes in this book lines like "money is the only thing that changes hands but never gets warmer"
    • 3/5
      If you time it correctly, both Jungle Books can hit you perfectly at just the right age. I think that's how they were for me as a kid. The first is a great adventure story, and the second is a level up, sadder and about growing up and everything. I need to make two detours here, the first regarding why I needed to re-read it.About a year ago, this tree I loved was cut down. I'm kind of weird about plants, comes from growing up a loner with a well-wooded acre to play in. Anyway, I get in a fit about how humans deal with nature, especially around here, where just about anything grows—except that nasty East coast stuff that just looks sad and out of place and never fills the area it was meant to, but is planted all over anyway. Now, I can't remember my thought process of a year ago, but somehow I dredged up a memory of a book I'd last read at least a decade before and remembered enough to find the right passage. It's just been percolating since then (After London had a bit to do with it) and with my mobile and Project Gutenberg I can indulge in my early chapter books with ease.Second: this book (especially in conjunction with the first) reminds me heavily of how (the movie) Labyrinth is and should have been. At the end of the second book, Kaa, Baloo, Bagheera and the four all pretty much tell Mowgli what Hoggle tells Sarah—that they'll always be there, "should you need us". But the end is so much more satisfying than Labyrinth, because Mowgli stayed in the jungle and became part of the jungle before "growing up" and "being a man", etc. How many of you were totally pissed that Sarah didn't stay with Jared? Most folks I know were. Imagine if she'd stayed there for a few years, raising her brother and finding herself (or whatever) and being the Goblin Queen, before returning to her parents and the human world. Mowgli, in talking with Akela a couple of years before the end of the book has this conversation: “I will never go. I will hunt alone in the Jungle. I have said it.” “After the summer come the Rains, and after the Rains comes the spring. Go back before thou art driven.” “Who will drive me?” “Mowgli will drive Mowgli. Go back to thy people. Go to Man.” “When Mowgli drives Mowgli I will go,” Mowgli answered. What if Sarah had waited until "Sarah drove Sarah"? Instead, (as Wikipedia gives us) "she must overcome [Jared] (and therefore this emotion) in order to fufil her quest."I don't know. Anyway, after that sweet and easy Kipling, I felt like going back to the Russians.
    • 1/5
      Ugly people, ugly times, even an ugly Paris, and not a pleasant book to read. The main protagonist, Harris Stuyvesant, is a former federal agent and is portrayed as a cross between a J Edgar Hoover castoff and a Philip Marlowe want-to-be, in a cheap suit. I very much enjoy Laurie King's books and struggled to finish but I had to give up.
    • 4/5
      I really liked this. The plot was just twisty enough and I really liked the characters. The setting, Paris in the late 1920s, just before the bottom fell out of the world economy, was really interesting. I didn't realize until after I finished this one that it's the second in the series. I'm going to go back and read book one soon. I hope she continues the series beyond this book.
    • 5/5
      i probably should have started with the first book, but oh well! This one works quite well as a stand alone. I"m a huge admirer of the Mary Russell books, so I was looking forward to this one. I have to say that I didn't find the characters as engaging, but perhaps that's because I don't know the history? I've purchased Touchstone, so I'll go and read it now.
    • 4/5
      In Jazz Age Paris, Harris Stuyvesant is looking for a young woman who seems to have dropped out of sight at the end of March. It's now August, and her family is very worried. Harris has a past as an FBI agent, and a friend recommended him to Phillipa Crosby's family to track her down.

      Paris isn't new territory for him, but he hasn't been there in a while, and he didn't previously spend his time looking into the darker corners of the Paris art world. As he looks for Phillipa--Pip, as he knew her briefly back in February--the same three names keep cropping up--Man Ray, Didi Moreau, and a distinguished war hero mostly known simply as le Comte. Pip was drawn into the surrealist art world, whose artists react to the brutality of the Great War by challenging all social norms and bringing dreams and nightmares to life.

      As he works his way through the evidence, he learns that Inspector Emile Dussaint of the Paris police has more than thirty unsolved missing persons cases over the last two years, and is looking for a pattern among them. Harris begins to fear that he may be right, and that Pip may be part of the pattern. But along the way, he also finds he has to dig into rather than forget his own past. He's still reeling from the events of three years ago, when his own dreams were exploded, and both an old friend and an old love prove to figure in his investigation. He needs the talents of one, and the other is now attached to the same surrealist art world that has seemingly swallowed Pip.

      Historical and fictional characters are blended smoothly, without clumsy name-dropping, and Harris and other major and minor characters have those characters beautifully unfolded before us. It's an absorbing, compelling mystery.

      Recommended.

      I bought this audiobook.
    • 3/5
      In short - Paris is a creepy place with creepy people, so be careful.
    • 3/5
      As usual, I enjoyed Laurie King's storytelling. I did find this a little cluttered with extra characters and thought the use of Bennett Grey was probably unnecessary.
    • 3/5
      Little did former FBI agent, now private detective, Harris Stuyvesant know that after spending "bed time" when the 22 year old American heiress Philippa "Pip" Crosby, that he would be hired by her uncle to find what happened to her when she stopped all communications with the family. Harris finds himself in post WWI Paris visiting one night club after another in the Montparnasse area of Paris, home for a number of American expatriates including Hemingway, Man Ray, and Cole Porter. Soon Harris discovers that Pip is one a number recent disappearances in Paris. The author, famous for Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes mysteries, ventures in another historical mystery, which frankly is inferior to some of her other series. However, it was enjoyable reading a novel populated by numerous writers and authors of this period.
    • 2/5
      Interesting plot that could have been more spellbinding. Disappointing, non-creative ending.
    • 4/5
      I love Laurie R. King's Mary Russell books. A lot. So I was excited to try this book with a new protagonist. Well, -ists, I suppose, though one doesn't really feature much until late in the story. This was an enjoyable read. Enough so that I whipped through it in less than a week (not bad, when my only reading time is a few minutes before falling asleep).I didn't love the characters as much as I love Russell and Holmes, but they're pretty exceptional, so I guess that makes sense. I did love the setting. King does a great job of describing it just enough. Not going overboard, but still giving you a real feeling for the setting, the mood. And the mood in this one was CREEPY. If reading the macabre gives you nightmares, you might give this one a miss. i was surprised I didn't have any crazy dreams, reading it at bedtime and all.I never like to give plot summaries for mysteries. That seems to be the whole point of reading the book. I'll just say this one was satisfying all the way through. I'm sure I'll read more of King's books. She tells a good story.
    • 4/5
      An American detective is in Paris, looking for a missing girl he once knew, and working his way through the debauchery of the streets, bars, and artistic community of post WWI. I would label this as an average read, but the author has a talent for characters, emotions, and situations that raises it above other noir detective stories.
    • 2/5
      Well known for her Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes series, “The Bones of Paris” is the second book in a new series set in the years after World War I. Referred to as the Stuveysant and Grey novels, the 1st novel, “Touchstone” introduced readers to Bennett Gray, a reclusive survivor of the devastating impact of “the Great War” and his American former FBI investigator colleague Harris Stuyvesant. Having read (and enjoyed) only one other King novel, “The Beekeeper’s Apprentice”, I was eager to read this advance copy of “The Bones of Paris” provided by Library Thing. The setting and feel of the nove is much like Charles Todd or Jacqueline Winspear, but the subject matter, the disappearance and as it turns out, cruel and graphic murder of young women felt more like the subject of a noir mystery. In either case the book was disappointing. King’s premise is a good one and this reader easily succumbed to the plot in the opening pages. Bennett Grey barely figures in this second book and the focus is on Harris Stuyvesant, now kicking around Europe somewhat aimlessly three years after the affairs of the first book in the series left him traumatized and mourning his dead lover. He is hired to locate a missing rich young American woman and begins doing so in a 1920s Paris where he encounters American expats, degenerate French aristocrats and a particularly persistent French gendarme.Very quickly the novel takes a dark and macabre turn. Young women are discovered to have been tortured and used in quasi-artistic endeavors. The plotline was fascinating at first but gradually became less and less credible. This lack of credibility was augmented by very slow pacing. Poor Stuyvesant just couldn’t seem to get a break and his suspicions and investigations seemed to drag on without any conclusion. As a true lover of mysteries I found myself looking ahead and counting pages and wondering when this novel was going to take off. In my opinion it never does take off although the culprits eventually are exposed, the loose ends tidied up and the ground nicely laid for the next book in the series.This is a fascinating time period and almost unbeatable setting and I believe that King’s detectives are unique and hold promise. But, based on my reaction to this 1st book, I doubt that I will continue on to the third. I think I’ll pick up the 2nd in the Mary Russell series and see how I fare before deciding if Laurie J. King is right for me.
    • 4/5
      I have enjoyed King's Sherlock Holmes pastiches over the years and usually seek out any new works from this fine author. Her current novel is quite a different work than the Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes stories, rather more in the vein of Stephen King or E.A. Poe. Nevertheless, I found this an interesting and worthy addition to King's growing collection of mystery offerings. It is a fine mystery in its own right and a must for fans of King looking for another side to her talents.This book was received as an Early Reader selection from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
    • 4/5
      Bones of Paris is a stellar sequel to the lackluster Touchstone. The book opens in 1929, three years after the events of Touchstone. with the hero - Harris Stuyvesant - no longer with the FBI. Now a freelance private detective and jack-of-all-trades to make ends meet he knocks about cheaper Europe as work takes him.The mother of a young woman who had been a fling several months before hires Stuyvesant to find her missing daughter. Assuming it's a simple cause of debauchery taken to extremes, he takes the case. It should be easy money, and he has rent to pay. All to soon, however, he realizes that something much darker is at work in the City of Light.King's novel brings the city of Paris in the Roaring Twenties to vibrant life; it is as much a character as any of those that populates the novel. Seeing how Harris Stuyvesant has evolved since Touchstone is interesting. It also helps to have ready the first book, but there are enough deftly-handled clues as to what's come before to make it readable to anyone just picking this up. Definitely worth the read.
    • 4/5
      I did not read the prior book in this series, but didn't find that a significant problem - while I didn't have all the background on the characters' relationships up front, it was filled in over time. This book is set in 1929, primarily in Paris' art world. Stuyvesant is hired to find a missing young American girl, with whom he'd had a liaison several months prior to her disappearance. I found the beginning a bit slow, but the story picked up, and by the middle I was quite engaged. I read the book in two sittings. There is some disturbing imagery in the story, but nothing too haunting, at least for me. A solid mystery, and I will probably seek out the prior book in the series now, to learn more about Stuyvesant, and the Grey siblings. Thanks for the Early Reviewers copy.
    • 3/5
      This is the second book in the Stuyvesant & Grey series. I very much enjoyed Touchstone so I was a little surprised that I had difficulty getting into the beginnings of this book. I am not sure why that was, by the end I was completely involved, but the start was slow going for me. Perhaps Harris Stuyvesant is not enough to carry the early story on his own, it did pick up when Bennett Grey, Sarah Grey, Inspector Doucet, and Nancy actively joined the plot. Perhaps the Surrealists art movement did not pull me in.I do hope there will be a 3rd book in this series and I hope that Inspector Doucet and Nancy make another appearance.
    • 5/5
      I've never been disappointed by Ms. King yet. This new series set in post World War I, follows the detective work of Harris who is looking for a missing girl. The author uses the background of the Surrealist movement to great effect in creating a kind of creepy atmosphere to the story. I'm looking forward to more novels in this series!
    • 4/5
      I haven't read any other books in this series, so when it was subtitled a Stuyvesant and Grey Novel, I was expecting to have both of them working on the missing person in Paris case. Stuyvesant is hired by an American family to find their missing daughter/niece, mostly because he'd encountered her and her friend a few months previously in another city. He eventually ends up sending some photographic evidence to Grey to get a second opinionn and that triggers his visit to the City of Light. But they end up having maybe three scenes together as the action heats up and they get separated. I was really looking forward to seeing how Grey's ability to tell truth from lie and to quickly infer facts from his keen (overly keen, due to a serious injury from WWI) perceptions, but we barely get to see him at work. Stuyvesant is a big bumbling American, he drinks too much, is susceptible to women, and has a temper, a fairly standard issue private eye. 1929 Paris is more of a character than Grey, inhabited by artists of all stripes. Man Ray appears often, and we see Hemingway a few times, plus a Dali sketch. It was well written and tensly plotted and the gory details weren't too obviously sketched but enough to give a sense of the horror surrounding the Grand Guignol theatre.
    • 5/5
      Synopsis: After the devastating events in England, Stuyvesant finds himself in Germany next to penniless and depressed. He receives a letter from the mother and uncle of a young flapper who has disappeared. In his search for Pip Crosby, he finds a lost love and a nest of sadists hiding under the guise of artists.Review: If you've ever been to the catacombs in Paris, or if you haven't, this will chill your blood. Some surrealists enjoy presenting 'shock' art. This book is based on these sorts of folks. Thankfully many of the chapters are short; you either need a relief from the tension or a place to stop so that you don't read all night.
    • 3/5
      I really like Laurie King's Russell and Holmes books, to the extent that I've been working my way slowly through the series with frequent re-reads. I was hoping to enjoy the Stuyvesant/Grey books as much. Unfortunately this hope was disappointed.Harris Stuyvesant must the be stupidest fictional detective I have ever had the ill fortune to encounter. For four hundred and twelve interminable pages we follow his confused wanderings back and forth (and back and forth...) through the streets, bars, parties, bedrooms, and catacombs of 1929 Paris. Finally a burst of not entirely logical action brings this prolonged peregrination (I can't call it "suspense", because I was alternately annoyed, disgusted, and bored) to a welcome end. Apparently "The Bones of Paris" is the second book in the series. I might read the first book if stuck in an airport - there are, after all, worse ways to pass the time, and at least the writing in this book was good. Pity about the plot.
    • 4/5
      An American ex-FBI man investigates the disappearance of an American girl in a Paris filled with outre artists, Americans escaping Prohibition and ordinary citizens. He discovers a lost love now working for one of his suspects and engaged to a police detective. Fast moving, interesting views of the 20s art scene and the residue of WWI. Will be enjoyed by those who like historical detection with engaging but flawed characters.
    • 4/5
      Stuyvesant is a tough guy American detective in Paris searching for a missing young American girl. The deeper he goes into the steamy, twisted night life of the Left Bank, the riper the stench rising from the local art scene. Murder and torture in the arts and theaters are used as therapeutic catharsis for those still suffering the aftershocks of WWI in the trenches.
    • 4/5
      I should first note that I love the Laurie King Holmes books, so I was very pleased to receive this one. I should also note that this is the second book in a series featuring an American detective and a British (ex-soldier?) and the fact that I hadn't read the first book made this one somewhat confusing—there were constant references to events that had happened in the first book, so it remained confusing. Also, I think King assumed you knew the characters fairly well as they weren't really filled out, especially the British one whom I never really figured out, but he didn't really play much of a role in this book.My first point about liking the Laurie King Holmes' series is that I wasn't really prepared for the noir feel of this book. Her other books have a sense of humor and occasional lightness to them; this book was unremittingly dark and macabre - like a film noir. It was very well written and the atmosphere she painted regarding 1929 Paris was very vivid. Her use of famous characters from that time - Hemingway, Picasso, etc. - was part of that. The mystery itself was interesting in its motivation and embellishment - the murderer is fairly obvious about mid-way through the book, so that wasn't much of a surprise.Overall, I would be cautious in my recommendation. If you don't enjoy macabre horror and darkness then this is not the book for you. On the other hand, for someone who does, it will strongly satisfy. It will also appeal to Francophiles, esp. those who like the art scene of interwar Paris.
    • 4/5
      As a fan of her Mary Russell series, I was hoping that this book would live up to that series by Ms. King. This book didn't quite make it there, but it was still an enjoyably fun romp in the 1920s Paris art world, and I will most certainly read the first book in this series to see if I can figure out a few little questions that I have.
    • 3/5
      Truly macrabe but says something about how artists can do almost anything in the name of "art" and folks will follow along with it. The fact that such a theatre really did exist is kind of depressing. Plot and storyline were OK--no real surprises but still interesting enough to keep me reading. Not for us though.
    • 3/5
      Harris Stuyvesant is a man who has lived his life adrift since the woman he loves was disfigured in an accident he could have prevented. He is an American man, but lives where ever he can find investigative work in Europe. The family of Philippa “Pip” Crosby dragged him out of Berlin and brought him back to Paris. Pip, the young daughter of a wealthy American family, had been discovering herself in 1920s Paris when she simply stopped writing home. Unbeknownst to her family, Stuyvesant had a fling with her before she disappeared. He took the assignment to get out of Berlin, but his deep need to find Pip was fueled by his guilty conscious. He had nothing to do with Pip’s disappearance, but he treated her only as a good time girl and she represented all of the romantic mistakes he’d made over the course of his life.What I EnjoyedThe sights and sounds of 1920s Paris, especially the art scene.This was my first novel featuring Harris Stuyvesant. I enjoyed his complexity and his messiness. I appreciated that he had a soul and, when he stopped to pay attention, saw what was worthy in other people. I also appreciated that Laurie R. King wrote this book in such a way that it stood alone on its own. I never felt at a loss during The Bones of Paris because this was my first encounter with Stuyvesant.The “Conversation” chapters that took place without Stuyvesant’s knowledge were interesting and made it fun to speculate about what really was happening.What Didn’t Work As Well For MeThis book slowed down as it reached the middle and it didn’t speed back up for me until near the end.As his investigation progresses without much result, Harris became more desperate to find Pip. He kept returning to an actual historical figure as his prime suspect in her disappearance. Even if I bought Stuyvesant’s arguments for this character’s involvement, this person was never accused of any criminal activity during his lifetime. As a modern reader I found it extremely unlikely, making that line of speculation feel especially long.Stuyvestant was simply a private investigator. He wasn’t a man of influence or affluence. Still, he knew or was acquainted with just about every famous person in Paris. There were sections of the book that felt like name dropping as a result. Since those sections rarely if ever advanced the story, it did nothing more than weight the story down.Audiobook Production and Narrator Jefferson MaysI snagged this book as part of Library Thing’s Early Reviewer program. I first attempted to read this book in print as the book hadn’t arrived yet. I had a hole in my reading schedule and thought I’d get a head start by picking up a copy at the library. Toward the middle of the book I picked up something else. While I found Stuyvesant interesting, I realized I didn’t have any innate need to find out what happened to Pip Crosby. A couple of weeks later the audiobook I actually snagged arrived in the mail. While I had the temptation to skip through the disks to get to where I last left the story, I listened to the audiobook from the beginning. This was my first experience listening to Jefferson Mays narrate. I was impressed. His tone kept the listen pleasant even while the story itself was slow. While the main character is American, Mays handled both French and British accents well. While he didn’t alter his voice or accent a great deal for female characters, I always knew who was speaking in a scene.This audiobook was produced by Recorded Books. The audiobook was well made. There was only one time when I think I might have noticed a sentence that was corrected, but I’m not entirely sure.This audiobook had audible prompts at the end and beginning of each CD. When I first started listening to audiobooks on my car stereo, my preference was to have those prompts. Most of the audiobooks I’ve listened to on CD do not have them. Over time, I must have gotten used to figuring out the transitions on my own because now I think I prefer not to get prompted.Overall ImpressionsI am glad that I gave this book a second chance because what the author did with the mystery itself was interesting. I am not sure that’s enough to make me want to pick up the first book in this series or any that are to follow. I prefer my mysteries to be faster paced. This would be a good selection for those who like slow burns. Jefferson May is another story entirely. He made this book enjoyable even when I wasn’t as gripped by the story itself. I would definitely pick up another audiobook performed by Jefferson Mays.
    • 3/5
      I am a great fan of this authors Martinelli series..but this one did not grab me.Maybe if I had read the first book in the series, as others suggest is necessary. But I am a believer that very book in a series must also be able to stand alone, so a am not going to let that excuse be used.And I could have done without all the real life famous folk dropping in. Just annoying in my mind.Not, not my cup of tea..Ms. King, is there another Martinelli in the future? Please?