Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Published by: Gallic Books (April 2011)
Pages: 348 (Paperback)
My Rating: 7/10
About the Book:
Parisian cop Martin Beaumont has never really got over his first love, Gabrielle. Their brief, intense affair in San Francisco and the pain of her rejection still haunt him years later.
Now, however, he's a successful detective – and tonight he's going to arrest the legendary art thief, Archibald Maclean, when he raids the Musée d'Orsay for a priceless Van Gogh.
But the enigmatic Archibald has other plans.
Martin's pursuit of the master criminal across Paris is the first step in an adventure that will take him back to San Francisco, and to the edge of love and life itself.
I really wanted to enjoy this book, it had all the ingredients of a fascinating story, the enigmatic cover of a woman alone on a beach, an unrequited love, a cop looking for a world famous art thief, set in France and the USA, obsessive characters …........ but in the end I just felt quite disappointed.
I thought the main storyline was too coincidental, it just didn’t feel plausible to me. If I said what it was it would be a huge spoiler.
I didn’t really empathise with the main characters either, Gabrielle, Martin and Archibald. I didn’t feel that I really knew them any more by the end than I did at the beginning. They didn’t seem to know what they thought and kept changing their minds so I didn’t know their inner mind workings, and therefore I found myself not caring too much about what happened to them.
I also wondered whether there was such a thing as product placement in a book? I lost count of the number of times a particular brand of fizzy drink was drunk, or a certain mp3 player was used, I actually found that quite annoying by the end.
I did think it was well translated though, if i didn’t know it was originally written in French, I wouldn’t have known, the writing flowed very easily and the dialogue seemed natural.
So, even though it was not my type of book I’m sure that some people would enjoy it, after all the cover reads that ‘over 1 million copies sold worldwide’!
Many thanks to Gallic Books for sending me this book to review.
Published by: Gallic Books (April 2011)
Pages: 348 (Paperback)
My Rating: 7/10
About the Book:
Parisian cop Martin Beaumont has never really got over his first love, Gabrielle. Their brief, intense affair in San Francisco and the pain of her rejection still haunt him years later.
Now, however, he's a successful detective – and tonight he's going to arrest the legendary art thief, Archibald Maclean, when he raids the Musée d'Orsay for a priceless Van Gogh.
But the enigmatic Archibald has other plans.
Martin's pursuit of the master criminal across Paris is the first step in an adventure that will take him back to San Francisco, and to the edge of love and life itself.
I really wanted to enjoy this book, it had all the ingredients of a fascinating story, the enigmatic cover of a woman alone on a beach, an unrequited love, a cop looking for a world famous art thief, set in France and the USA, obsessive characters …........ but in the end I just felt quite disappointed.
I thought the main storyline was too coincidental, it just didn’t feel plausible to me. If I said what it was it would be a huge spoiler.
I didn’t really empathise with the main characters either, Gabrielle, Martin and Archibald. I didn’t feel that I really knew them any more by the end than I did at the beginning. They didn’t seem to know what they thought and kept changing their minds so I didn’t know their inner mind workings, and therefore I found myself not caring too much about what happened to them.
I also wondered whether there was such a thing as product placement in a book? I lost count of the number of times a particular brand of fizzy drink was drunk, or a certain mp3 player was used, I actually found that quite annoying by the end.
I did think it was well translated though, if i didn’t know it was originally written in French, I wouldn’t have known, the writing flowed very easily and the dialogue seemed natural.
So, even though it was not my type of book I’m sure that some people would enjoy it, after all the cover reads that ‘over 1 million copies sold worldwide’!
Many thanks to Gallic Books for sending me this book to review.
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