Art historian Joan Blakely takes an assignment as an art courier to transport some valuable drawings to a museum in Paris. Soon after she arrives, the drawings are stolen and a note is left for Joan that contains a riddle and a picture from one of Joan’s late father’s journals, journals that Joan thought were destroyed when her father died on 9/11. If Joan can solve the riddles and follow the scavenger hunt throughout Paris, she might be able to recover the stolen drawings as well as learn what her father’s journals have to do with them.
This book didn’t really work for me and it was kind of a slog to get through. Fair warning, I feel like this review is going to be a bit of a rant but there was a lot about this book that, the more I think about it, I didn’t like.
First off, there was just so much exposition and extra information that, in my opinion, was not needed. It felt like any time a new character was introduced, there were two pages of backstory about that character. I really didn’t need to know the history of all the painters or a whole background about the drawings. You could have just told me that the drawings were rare and expensive. I honestly felt that half the pages in this book could have been taken out and the story would not have changed at all.
In addition to everyone’s backstory, we also get a lot of Joan reminiscing about her father and her childhood. I thought that this really affected the pacing of the book because we would be chugging along and then all of a sudden we are pulled into this random memory for three pages that completely took me out of the story. I felt it was just more extra information that was not needed.
There is also a lot of celebrity name-dropping. We get it – Joan’s father was famous but it seemed like every time a famous person was mentioned, Joan had to bring it back to her dad. A character mentions they like Ray Bradbury books – Joan’s dad was friends with him. A character mentions David Bowie – Joan has to reminisce about her father and him. Honestly, I don’t love it when authors put too many real people in their books because it takes me out of the fiction of the story.
I also felt that setting the book in 2011 and having Joan’s dad be a victim of 9/11 was unnecessary. I thought it added zero relevance to the story, other than to have a spectacular event connected to the plot. Joan’s dad could have been killed in any airplane crash, or a car crash, or a fire, or any other kind of disaster. Having him be a victim of 9/11 added nothing to the story.
I haven’t talked about the reveal about who stole the drawings and why, which just made me angry. I did not understand it one bit.
I know it seems like I hated this book, but it was fine. If you like reading about Paris, you might like this book a lot. The characters traipse all around Paris, going to a bunch of landmarks and the descriptions are fantastic. I think I may have liked this book more if there wasn’t so much superfluous text.
To check out other reviews, find this book on goodreads or amazon. Please note, all links are affiliate which gives a small portion of profit to Rainy Days and Clichés. Thank you so much for your continuous kindness!
Leave a Reply