"The Paris Apartment" by Lucy Foley

Above: "The Paris Apartment." Lucy Foley. 360 pages. 

"The Paris Apartment" is more complex than the first two Foley novels I read. The topic is darker... the characters more sinister... and the presence of true evil looms larger.

I completed reading this book today.

I'm hooked on Lucy Foley's who-done-it novels. This is the third Lucy Foley novel I have read. The others: "The Hunting Party," and "The Guest List." "The Paris Apartment" is more complex than the first two Foley novels I read. The topic is darker... the characters more sinister... and the presence of true evil looms larger.

Jess, jobless and alone, travels to Paris from the UK to seek the company of her somewhat estranged half-brother, Ben, in Paris. Ben, reluctant but obligated by blood to receive her, gives her directions to his Paris apartment. He'll, he says, be there when she arrives that evening.

Jess arrives, on time, and as directed by Ben, but only Ben's cat is in the 2nd floor flat. "Hmm... Ben told me he'd be here.... where is he?

Enter into the narrative the residents of the apartment block, all but one of whom (Nicholas) are not particularly friendly to Jess as she seeks information about the whereabouts of her brother.

Dramatis personae:

The crone-like concierge, who lives in a cramped ground floor space.

Sophia, the stern, well-coiffed, designer dressed, fifty-something, Parisienne sophisticate. Fifth floor penthouse.

Antoine, the gruff, mid-thirties, boorish, alcoholic who, within a short time of Jess's arrival is seen by Jess, from brother Ben's second floor window, to be forcefully throwing his wife out into the street.

Nicholas, third floor, a seemingly honest thirty something. Seemingly is the operative term as Jess is later to find out.

Mimi. Eighteen. Fourth floor. Quiet, quirky (and nutty?) teen living with her outgoing, social, and promiscuous friend, Clare.

The novel unfolds as Jess engages with the apartment residents in an effort to seek answers on the whereabouts of her brother Ben.

SPOILERS follow!!! A primary reason for doing these reviews is so I can recall what I read!

The characters, though they live in different apartments, are members of one family. A mother, her two sons, and a daughter.

Ben, a restaurant reviewer and Wanna-Be investigative reporter, had been invited by his college friend Nick to stay in the empty second floor unit. Ben's disappearance has to do with the fleshing out of the family secrets of his hosts. His inquiry is enabled by ten-year-old, careless family revelations from college friend Nick, once his besotted homosexual partner.

Family secrets? What secrets? There is a dad, Jacques. His appearances in the novel are few, but his sinister presence looms large throughout the narrative. His wife and children owe their comfortable Parisian lifestyles to Jacque's business success. Jess discovers that Jacques inherited a fabulously valuable wine collection from his mother and sells, legally, that wine to "tout Paris" male customers in a tony Paris club. What accompanies the wine, is not legit: eastern European girls, sans visas. Jacques has a human trafficking secret... that he wants kept secret. Ben's disappearance, Jess surmises, must have something to do with his entering into Jacques' secret world.

Sophia is a stepmother to Nick and Antoine. Thirty years ago, when Jacques first wife passed away, she was plucked out of servitude in Jacque's club and turned into a polished Parisan spouse. Mimi is the granddaughter of the Albanian immigrant concierge. Mimi's mother, a sex slave at Jacque's club, died in childbirth. Mimi adopted by Jacques and Sophia. Both sons, Nick and Antoine, are weak, n'ere-do-well, losers at once dependent on, and resentful of, their arrogant and overbearing father, Jacques.

Jess doesn't work alone in trying to find her brother Ben. From a business card found in Ben's apartment, she contacts Theo, Ben's publishing agent. Theo is an ally in Jess's unravelling the reasons behind her brother's disappearance.

The denouement of the book I won't reveal. But Jess's very life is on the line as she bravely nears the truth about her brother's fate.

Foley's books are cleverly written page turners where it's not always clear that "the butler did it." She keeps you guessing. I'm game for another Foley novel!

PS. I'm a fan of Paris. I lived there for 18 months in the mid-60's, in the 14th, the 16th, and in the banlieue communities of Nogent sur Marne and Chatillon. But the setting of Paris is not critical to the novel. The plot mostly unfolds in an apartment complex and the references to Paris are peripheral. The novel setting could have been in New York, London or any other sophisticated western city.