The Black Tower

Louis Bayard has now moved into that category of writer who I can't wait to see what they're going to turn out next. He is so brilliant at taking fictional characters and blending them with factual. This time he uses real life Parisian master sleuth Vidocq who is investigating the startling claim that Marie Antionette's son did not die, but escaped the Black Tower he was imprisoned in, and is now living somewhere in Paris. Like all other Bayard works, this is full of plenty of twists which keeps you guessing until the end. And while I didn't enjoy it quite as much as 'The Pale Blue Eye', it's still another great bit of fictional fancy.

Vidocq is France's Sherlock Holmes, living in the tumultuous years after the Napoleonic Wars. Whereas Holmes lives a life of Victorian middle-class respectability, Vidocq is a vulgar product of the lower classes, with a criminal past. Like Holmes, he is a gifted detective and master of disguise and impersonation.

In this murder mystery, told through the eyes of an early suspect, Vidocq gets entangled with a man who might be the rightful heir to the throne of France. The story begins with "mystery" and then becomes more "action" oriented. I'm not very patient with action-based plots that seem all-too-ready for the movie screen, so I liked the more puzzling first half of the novel more than the second. The resolution of the story is satisfying enough, though the coda to the story seemed more contrived to me.

This book's real successes are two: the character of Vidocq, and the mastery of the historical setting. Vidocq is a larger-than-life character, and I'll let you read the book to discover more about him. The historical setting is easier to explain. Most Americans probably don't know that the Restoration existed, much less know anything about it. Bayard's reconstruction of that world feels right, and he shows it to us from the interesting perspectives of a middle-class doctor falling into poverty and a former criminal rising through the police ranks.

It's a fun book with a good mystery in an interesting historical setting.

As a big fan of two of Louis Bayard's other books, The Pale Blue Eye and Mr. Timothy, I jumped at the chance to get an advance copy of The Black Tower on the Amazon Vine program. Bayard's prior two novels both utilize characters familiar to us from history (Edgar Allan Poe) or fiction (Tiny Tim) and place them in the center of the action. In Black Tower, Bayard gives us fictionalized versions of Charles XVII and Detective Vidoq, the latter of whom is believed to be the real-life model for Poe's Inspector Dupin.

To get straight to the point, I was a bit disappointed in Black Tower. Although the book is another example of Bayard's mastery of the picturesque turn of phrase, and though it succeeds in giving us a vivid glimpse of the zeitgeist of the French Reformation period, I felt it wasn't as good as the author's earlier books in developing characters we care about or in charting a steady, forward-moving narrative line.

Vidoq is introduced to us as a sort of French Sherlock Holmes, but he rarely displays the incredible powers of deduction promised by his advance billing. He floats in and out of the story, serving not so much as a detective, but as a guy who uses clever disguises to deceive people or rescue them at the last minute. And, though I think Bayard wanted to make Vidoq enigmatic, he enshrouds him in more haze than mystery. Similarly, the escaped dauphin, Charles, seems sketchy as to both personality and purpose. And the main character, Hector, is initially drawn as a somewhat colorless chap, and, as he goes through his mild character arc, he never did take on enough color to spark a lot of my interest.

Two of the most tantalizing characters in the story, both young women (Eulalie and Jeanne-Victoire), are introduced, occasionally reappear either bodily or by reference, and then pretty much disappear, leaving me wondering why they were ever there. I couldn't escape the feeling that they were bigger players in earlier drafts, players who got severely blue-penciled to limit the total page count in the final version.

As to plot, the book seems to meander, rather than constantly move ahead, and I was never quite sure where it was headed. On the last page, I wasn't even sure that it had arrived, because, in my opinion, it never answered the major dramatic question it posed at the outset. Though the ending does provide a few surprises, they're too mild and too far off the main topic to constitute a satisfying payoff.

Though it may seem I disliked the book, the fact is that I enjoy Bayard's writing style so much that I'm glad I read the book and I'm looking forward to his next one. I think most readers will also find the book worth reading if only to enjoy Bayard's artistry with words. Be forewarned, however, that Bayard constantly tosses off words like "tocsin," "declivity," and "cariole" that may have you running to the dictionary every five minutes. The effort is worthwhile, though, because the language is gorgeous once you decipher it.

Although outside my usual choices, I was intrigued by the premise of this book and decided to give it a try. I am very glad I did. What I found was a captivating tale that I was anxious to finish, and may even read again soon to pick up on a few things I missed the first time through.

Let me start by praising the author's overall descriptive writing. While colorful and interesting, he stops short of over-describing every little detail, leaving enough to the reader's imagination to keep the story moving at a reasonable pace. The locations were well described for those who might be unfamiliar with Paris, but not in such depth that it became a travel guide to the region. The characters felt well developed. There is a fine line between rounding out a character and giving them a personality and back story and shamelessly padding the story with useless information about the characters. The author definitely stuck to the former, giving a good look at WHO these people are, without recounting their entire lives minute-by-minute.

The plot itself was fresh and interesting. There were enough twists and turns to keep me hooked till the very end, without any urge to skip ahead and read the conclusion. However, I wouldn't call it suspenseful. I did suspect the ultimate conclusion from very near the beginning, but it is HOW the author arrives at that conclusion that held my interest. I don't want to give anything away for those who haven't read it yet, however so I'll leave it at that.

I never count Advanced Reader Copies against the book, as I am well aware that they are unfinished, sometimes unedited versions of the eventual book. However, I feel it should be noted that this book is so well written that I noticed very few, if any, mistakes even at this stage. I have found this to be a rare occurrence, and mean it only as a compliment to Mr. Bayard that he was able to write such a fantastic piece of literature to begin with. This neither added to, nor detracted from my rating of the book, just an observation to give the reader an indication of the quality of writing this book offers.

If you've read Vidocq's memoirs, Bayard's portrayal of the man ring pretty close to how Vidocq wanted himself mythologized. (Which may or may not be how he *was*, but that's how V wanted the world to remember him, so that's what we've got!) Bayard did a wonderful job creating the flavor of the man.

Most of the reviews seem to give short shrift to the narrator, and I think also overlook one part of what this novel is really about, which is the growth of our hectored Hector from a mama's boy to a 'man' under Vidocq's strange tutelage. The whole theme of fathers and sons and masculine legacy (contrasted with maternal/female family influence) permeate the novel, even in unexpected places (*Father* Time?), and it's easy to read Vidocq's strange taking of Hector under his wing as a kind of non-biological paternity, working almost across the grain of the dauphin plot. The novel is, after all, dedicated to Bayard's father.

It's not particularly dense in the 'period piece' aspect--some time, but not a lot, devoted to descriptions of places, clothes, etc, and as a matter of personal preference, I'd've liked a bit more, just to be able to visualize things more clearly. The plot is convoluted, and occasionally a bit thin, but Vidocq's bizarre personality redeems much. I think an entire book of Vidocq being his over-the-top self would have been way too much--interleaving Vidocq scenes with quieter, softer-timbred scenes of Hector and Charles or Hector and his mother provide needed breaks in what could easily have become an overbearing personality.

This book is very much worth your time!