A review by ibeforem
The Black Tower by Louis Bayard

4.0

I love historical fiction that introduces me to a time I’m not familiar with, in this case, the French Restoration following the ousting of Napoleon. Unlike The Firemaster’s Mistress, a recently unfinished read which also took place in an unfamiliar era (early 1600s England), I almost immediately got a feel for Paris in the early 1800s. One is pulled into this story not by Hector Carpentier, who serves as little more than narrator for most of the book, but by Vidocq, the eccentric yet extremely effective police chief who comes to Hector in search of a murderer. And, someone who actually existed! A fact I did not know until after I finished. That’s another mark of good historical fiction to me… it sends me straight to Wikipedia to learn more. It left me wanting to know about the real mystery of the Dauphin, and whether he really did live or die. History does not truly know, and by the time you get to the end of this book, you’re not sure Fiction knows either.