Tangled Web UK Review March 2009
The Paris Enigma by
Pablo de Santis
hbk out January 09
Published by HarperCollins
at £17.99
Pablo de Santis is an Argentinian born in 1963. He is a literature graduate, turned journalist and comic writer. Until this book he wrote teenage novels.
The year is 1888, and the place Buenos Aires. Sigmundo Salvatrio is the son of a Genoan cobbler now settled in Argentina. He answers an ad for students to train under the great detective Renato Craig. When he is accepted he has no idea that he will end up being Craig’s "acolyte". At first Gabriel Alarcon is the obvious choice as best pupil, but when he disappears during the final test as detective’s assistant, Sigmundo helps Craig trace the youth. He is found dead, and Craig exacts a very undetective-like revenge by torturing his murderer to death. Sigmundo is then selected by Craig to represent him at the convention of Twelve Detectives at the Paris World Fair of 1889. Except for Craig, himself a founder member of the group, the twelve most famous detectives in the world meet to set up an exhibition of their skills. Amongst their numbers are Caleb Lawson from England, who bears a striking resemblance to Holmes, Novarius from the USA, Sakawa, the inscrutable Japanese, and both Louis Darbon and Viktor Arzaky from Paris. They all bring with them their "acolytes", who assist them but never outshine them. Then one day, Darbon falls from the new Eiffel Tower, and a murder investigation must begin. Arzaky, on home territory, takes charge, and has Sigmundo assist him. Differences of opinion and approaches to investigation threaten to crack open the fellowship of the Twelve.
The story is a fascinating construct, allowing individual detectives to relate their most famous cases, or cases typifying certain aspect of detection. They are loosely linked by the Darbon murder, and an insight into the detective genre. The borders of fiction and reality are blurred as we learn each detective is known through the telling of his latest exploits in magazines and serials. These pulp fiction style journals are headed by the popular "Key to Crime", a biweekly serial costing 25 cents, and "Traces", the official journal of the Twelve Detectives. All the stories within the story are classic puzzle tales, solved by cerebral means. Set against the jealousies of the detectives themselves, and the controversies surrounding the building of the Eiffel Tower, this tale gloriously recreates the mood of a place in time, and of a genre at its flowering. One is tempted, because of the author’s nationality, to compare him with Jorge Luis Borges, surrealist, librarian and critic of Peron. He may not be in that class, but there is still something surreal about the book, which must draw heavily on de Santis’s background as literature student, journalist and comic book writer. It is a one-off, and an excellent read.
(
Ian Morson
Author of Falconer books and short listed for 1999 Ellis Peters Historical Crime Dagger)
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