The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley

Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication Date: 3 March 2022

Welcome to No.12 rue des Amants

A beautiful old apartment block, far from the glittering lights of the Eiffel Tower and the bustling banks of the Seine. Where nothing goes unseen, and everyone has a story to unlock.

The watchful concierge
The scorned lover
The prying journalist
The naïve student
The unwanted guest

There was a murder here last night.
A mystery lies behind the door of apartment three.

If I were to give one word to best describe The Paris Apartment, I think that word would be ‘sinister’.

After losing her job, Jess Hadley heads to Paris to stay with her half-brother Ben, a freelance journalist. Yet, on her arrival at Number 12 Rue des Amants, Ben is nowhere to be found. Having met the other inhabitants of the building, Jess is certain there is something very odd going on at Number 12 Rue des Amants.

The tale is a slow burner, introducing us to the main characters and gradually revealing how each of those characters can be tied to Ben. The first half of the book creates an air of anticipation, with the reader sensing that something tense and gripping lays within the following chapters.

The use of multiple narrators allows the reader to look into the lives of each character, learning the problems and troubles that lie behind closed doors. The tale is told via short chapters which means that the moment the reader discovers something new and exciting, the story then veers away to another narrator leaving the reader keen to read more.

The setting is perfect. With its hidden passages, beady-eyed concierge and odd inhabitants, the building gives a sense of being dark, sinister and oppressive which provides the ideal background for this atmospheric and claustrophobic thriller. The building almost feels like a character in its own right.

As you would expect from a good mystery, the book is tightly plotted, with the author dropping a few clues along with a few red-herrings to keep the reader on their toes.

The Paris Apartment is an absolute page turner. I simply couldn’t put the book down. Twisty, creepy and utterly compelling this murder mystery/thriller proves to be very entertaining and I would happily recommend it.

A huge thanks to HarperCollins and Netgalley for providing me with a review copy of this book,

Lucy Foley studied English Literature at Durham and UCL universities. She then worked for several years as a fiction editor in the publishing industry – during which time she also wrote her debut, The Book of Lost and Found. Lucy now writes full-time, and is busy travelling (for research, naturally!) and working on her next novel.

Visit her Facebook page at www.facebook.com/LucyFoleyAuthor and follow her on Twitter @lucyfoleytweets