Book Review: The Paris Mystery by Kirsty Manning

Australian reporter Charlotte “Charlie” James didn’t exactly lie to land her plum job as correspondent for the British-based newspaper The Times in 1938 Paris. After all, no one asked her if she was a woman. It certainly isn’t her fault that her new boss assumed from her byline that she’d be a man. To George Roberts’ credit, once the head of the Paris bureau gets over his surprise at her gender, he’s happy enough to give her the same opportunities he would offer to any of his other new hires. 

Charlie’s first assignment is to ingratiate herself with Lord and Lady Ashworth who are leading lights in Parisian society, especially among the emigre set. For once her gender works to her advantage, allowing her to make the quick and easy acquaintance of the friendly if decidedly quirky Lady Ashworth. Charlie is bemused by many of Lady Ashworth’s eccentricities, but perhaps by none more so than her relationship with her much younger assistant, Conrad Mackenzie. Charlie’s well-connected co-worker Violet Carthage can neither confirm nor deny the nature of their relationship, but assures Charlie that whatever it is, it’s no big deal. While

In Sydney, such matters were clandestine and spoken about in hushed whispers; here, Lady Ashworth was free to be herself. In Paris, emotions were amplified, abstract ideas and dreams revered, and conventions shrugged off with French nonchalance. Charlie thought it was wonderful.

 

She had come to Paris to reinvent herself in the city that flouted rules. Break news. Break stories. Break with her past.

Charlie has thus already been seduced by the glamor of Paris even before Lady Ashworth invites her to the Circus Ball, a glamorous fete that the Ashworths throw annually on the eve of the summer solstice. The extravaganza features beautiful people, scrumptious food and titillating entertainment. Secret assignations in the shadows of the wealthy couple’s sprawling Villa Trianon estate only add to the night’s air of romance, danger and mystery. 

Real drama erupts, however, when the influential Maxime Marchand is found stabbed to death in the estate’s labyrinth. Charlie herself had had minimal contact with the wealthy financier, having previously been warned away from spending too much time with a man whose reputation earned him just as much mistrust as admiration. Her instincts had led her to heed that warning, just as they now tell her that staying at the forefront of his murder investigation could land her the scoop that solidifies her Parisian career. 

Trouble is, Maxime was so well-connected that an alarming number of often conflicting political pressures keep coming to bear on both her and her paper’s coverage of the case. Getting to the truth would get almost everyone off of her and Roberts’ backs. The one exception, of course, would be the murderer, who has no intention of being brought to justice. Can Charlie avoid becoming the killer’s next victim in the course of her relentless pursuit of the truth?

The Paris Mystery is a transporting tale of a plucky young reporter in Gay Paree, brought to effervescent life by Kirsty Manning’s vivid writing. The food, the fashion and the heady atmosphere are all captured perfectly as Charlie balances her appreciation of her new home with her determination to develop her career. It is, after all, a job she’s worked hard to nurture, no mean feat for a woman in the 1930s, whether in Europe or in Australia where she first made her name:

It was only when she took over a murder story from an unfortunate junior beat reporter who’d had his appendix out that her boss had noticed she had some serious writing prowess. He’d raised his bushy eyebrows as he’d read her homicide copy and passed it to the subeditors, barking, ‘No changes,’ before adding quickly, ‘but make the by-line Charlie James. We want people to read it–it’s not the case of the missing handkerchief.’ He’d sauntered out, slamming the door behind him.

 

Standing in the middle of the room, typewriters whirring around her, Charlie had had the strangest sensation of being both hugged and slapped.

This considered examination of both the good and bad of being a female journalist during that era serves to enhance the verisimilitude of a story deeply rooted in the pre-World War II years. The mystery itself offers plenty of twists as Charlie pursues both her scoop and an extraordinary new life in the City of Light.