The Unknown Woman of the Seine
A Novel
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A mysterious woman is suspected of murder at the 1889 Paris Expo in this historical novel of “gorgeous prose” by the author of The Chess Garden (Kirkus Reviews).
Paris, 1889. When the body of an unknown woman appears on the banks of the Seine, it is put on display at the morgue behind Notre Dame, according to protocol. Though the woman is never identified, her eerie beauty is so captivating that a death mask is made of her face. The mask would become one of the most famous curios of the twentieth century. Set during the final days of 1889’s Exposition Universelle, Brooks Hansen’s fascinating novel speculates on who this mysterious woman was.
Disgraced former Gendarme Henri Brassard is returning to Paris, determined to reclaim his place in La Force. When he crosses paths with a suspicious woman in a gypsy wagon, he suspects her of a brutal crime. Tracking her through the city, Brassard observes from the shadows as she winds her way into the orbit of several savory and unsavory characters—an artist, an impresario, a madame, a countess—each of whom sees in her a chance for profit or redemption; any one of whom may therefore be responsible for her sudden and unexplained disappearance.
Brassard’s chase will lead him on a grand tour of nineteenth-century Paris, from its highest spires to its darkest catacombs. By the end, he will learn the stunning truth of the unknown woman’s identity, but not before unearthing the equally disturbing truth about himself.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Inspired by the death mask of a 19th-century Frenchwoman whose identity has never been discovered, Hansen's diffuse latest (after Asmodeus) is set during France's 1889 Exposition Universelle. Traveling through the forests west of Paris, gendarme Emile Brassard comes across the half-buried corpse of a man whose throat has been cut and, nearby, a young woman in a Romani wagon. Her dirty nails and abstracted state make Brassard suspect her of the killing. Solving the murder could help him get restored to active duty after an unjust suspension, so he follows her to the city. When she leaves the wagon behind, Brassard hires a street urchin to follow her while he awaits the woman's return. As she visits the Eiffel Tower among other Exposition sights, the unnamed woman attracts the attention of artist François Michaud and impresario Bruno Chavarin. Michaud wants to paint her and Chavarin to cast her in one of his revues, but after each befriends her, she vanishes. Meanwhile, the clues to her past Brassard finds under the wagon's floorboards and a final brief encounter with her prompt Brassard to rethink his career. Though Hansen's reflection on the way one individual can become the focus of many others' dreams is thought-provoking, there are too many disparate threads. In the end, it doesn't quite gel.
