Description:
Moving on from Edgar Allan Poe, the subject of his Edgar-nominated Pale Blue Eye, Bayard takes on the legendary Vidocq in this compelling historical mystery. The narrator is a young and not particularly successful doctor and the setting is the Restoration period of 1818 that followed Napoleon's fall and the return of the Bourbon monarchy. A complex plot that concerns the possible survival of the Dauphin--supposedly killed during the Reign of Terror--drags the doctor into Vidocq's eccentric and dangerous orbit. Bayard effortlessly blends historical and fictional elements into a highly readable novel full of suprises about an era unfamiliar to most readers.