The Chatelet Apprentice

On the front cover of The Chatelet Apprentice by Jean-Francois Parot translated from the French by Michael Glencross is an extract from a review by the Mail on Sunday "Reads like a cross between a Maigret mystery and Les Liasons Dangereuses". Frankly, I dislike this kind of shorthand description. The Chatelet Apprentice is nothing like Les Liasons Dangereuses apart from it's eighteenth century French setting and it's only resemblance to Maigret is that it is a detective story. Monsieur Parot, who is both an historian and a diplomat, has written a book in a higher league that Simenon's Maigret potboilers. He effortlessly conveys the atmosphere of the period with it's glitter and grace alongside it's casual acceptance of squalor and brutality. The hero, Nicolas Le Floch, is recomended to Antoine de Sartine Lieutenant General of the Paris Police by his godfather the Marquis de Ranreuil. Sartine sends him to work for Commisioner Lardin at the Chatelet prison in order to learn police methods hence the title of the book. The action of the story begins a year later when Commisioner Lardin disappears and de Sartine appoints the young Le Floch to head the investigation. To outline more of the plot would perhaps spoil what is a first class mystery for other readers. Suffice it to say that it contains all the twists and surprises that one would expect and in addition a feast of information on this, to English readers, relatively unknown period of French history. That Parot can introduce this information unobtrusively into his narrative is an object lesson to all would-be historical novelists.