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A review by sethlynch
The Good Thief's Guide to Paris by Chris Ewan
5.0
The Good Thief’s Guide to Paris is the second in the series. The first was Amsterdam. The three main characters from the first book are here in Paris – Charlie Howard (he is the narrator so I guess he has to be there), his literary agent Victoria, and his fence Pierre. Victoria’s voice was in the Amsterdam book – being on the end of the phone. She acts in both books as a sounding board for Charlie – and, maybe, a love interest? There is also an interesting new character – who may only appear in this book although I would like to see him come back – called Mr Farmer. Farmer is a fixer for a number of people. He reminded me of the Fat Man from the Maltese Falcon, although based on his description I think he is probably more Robert Morley. (And now I’d really like to watch a Robert Morley film.)
The humour form the first book is here again. It’s a nice accompaniment to the plot and is usually at Charlie’s own expense. The plot is confusing in a good way (a lot happens and we are as lost as Charlie is, almost anyway) – I’m not going to try to explain it because I don’t want to spoil the book for anyone who hasn’t read it, and I doubt I could remember all the twists. I was quite pleased not to have gotten the final twist – if I’d stopped to think about it I probably could have worked it out, but I didn’t want to stop I wanted to carry on reading. The book ends with some useful French translations which made me laugh out loud.
I liked the feel of Paris in the story. In this book the Pompidou Centre is a central focus. I could picture it clearly. I have been there twice – once for the excellent Surrealist exhibition, then a year or so later for the not so excellent Dada exhibition. The Dada one had too much material and not enough space – one of André Breton’s notebooks was open in a display and people kept bumping into me as I was trying to read it. We did conceive my eldest daughter, Minty, on that trip so I can’t complain.
If you haven’t read any of these books yet then you should start now. There are three in the shops already. You can advance order the guide to Venice – which is out at the end of April.
The humour form the first book is here again. It’s a nice accompaniment to the plot and is usually at Charlie’s own expense. The plot is confusing in a good way (a lot happens and we are as lost as Charlie is, almost anyway) – I’m not going to try to explain it because I don’t want to spoil the book for anyone who hasn’t read it, and I doubt I could remember all the twists. I was quite pleased not to have gotten the final twist – if I’d stopped to think about it I probably could have worked it out, but I didn’t want to stop I wanted to carry on reading. The book ends with some useful French translations which made me laugh out loud.
I liked the feel of Paris in the story. In this book the Pompidou Centre is a central focus. I could picture it clearly. I have been there twice – once for the excellent Surrealist exhibition, then a year or so later for the not so excellent Dada exhibition. The Dada one had too much material and not enough space – one of André Breton’s notebooks was open in a display and people kept bumping into me as I was trying to read it. We did conceive my eldest daughter, Minty, on that trip so I can’t complain.
If you haven’t read any of these books yet then you should start now. There are three in the shops already. You can advance order the guide to Venice – which is out at the end of April.