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Paris City of Night
Paris is alluring, seductive, and by no means benign as Jay Grant well knows. Orange alerts make people trigger-happy. Red and black alerts are worse. They transform the City of Light into a hellish City of Night . . .
Jay Anthony Grant, aka JAG, the son of a recently deceased CIA officer, has serious issues about his father s past. Off to meet his fiancée and spend a winter vacation in Paris, that past draws JAG into a tangled Parisian web of intrigue. An orange alert as New Year s looms in the form of a twinkling Eiffel Tower and fanatics on both sides of the terror divide are out to make JAG s life unpleasant.
A suspenseful Hitchcockian page-turner, Paris City of Night is a classic thriller set in contemporary Paris. This Paris isn t the sparkling City of Light but a shadowy place full of cheats, forgers, murderers, U.S. Security operatives and aging Cold Warriors.
Best to start reading this one early in the evening... unless, that is, you don t mind losing a night s sleep! writes the best-selling thriller author David Hunt. Anton Gill, creator of the world-best-selling Egyptian Mysteries, calls the book, Unputdownable a real page-turner. No one should miss this. Diane Johnson thinks Paris City of Night is a wild ride through the dark side of Paris with a writer who knows the city s streets and their secrets...
Jay Anthony Grant, aka JAG, the son of a recently deceased CIA officer, has serious issues about his father s past. Off to meet his fiancée and spend a winter vacation in Paris, that past draws JAG into a tangled Parisian web of intrigue. An orange alert as New Year s looms in the form of a twinkling Eiffel Tower and fanatics on both sides of the terror divide are out to make JAG s life unpleasant.
A suspenseful Hitchcockian page-turner, Paris City of Night is a classic thriller set in contemporary Paris. This Paris isn t the sparkling City of Light but a shadowy place full of cheats, forgers, murderers, U.S. Security operatives and aging Cold Warriors.
Best to start reading this one early in the evening... unless, that is, you don t mind losing a night s sleep! writes the best-selling thriller author David Hunt. Anton Gill, creator of the world-best-selling Egyptian Mysteries, calls the book, Unputdownable a real page-turner. No one should miss this. Diane Johnson thinks Paris City of Night is a wild ride through the dark side of Paris with a writer who knows the city s streets and their secrets...
- GenresFrance
213 pages, Paperback
First published June 15, 2009
About the author
David Downie
47 books70 followersBestselling author of novels (crime, thrillers) and over a dozen nonfiction books, has divided his time between France, Italy and California since 1986. A former journalist and guide. Creator of the Commissioner Daria Vinci series; the first Daria Vinci Investigation is Red Riviera (June 2021), the second Daria Vinci Investigation is Roman Roulette (summer 2022). www. davidddownie.com
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 14, 2017
My second time reading this book and this time I read more slowly, took in the details and truly enjoyed it.
You must pay close attention to the opening since you are in the mind of an old woman in her 90s who has been a resistant and a spy.
All else follows nicely if you have patience for details about daguerreotypes and photography.
It was worth re-reading.
You must pay close attention to the opening since you are in the mind of an old woman in her 90s who has been a resistant and a spy.
All else follows nicely if you have patience for details about daguerreotypes and photography.
It was worth re-reading.
January 19, 2021
This was my second attempt reading this book. The plot was interesting and the characters likable. I had to look up the word "daguerreotype". The biggest plus: it takes place in Paris.
January 30, 2020
I loved this book! It's in a genre I don't usually read, but I'm a fan of David Downie's Paris books and figured that from his pen, this would be a winner. I wasn't disappointed. It is fast-paced and suspenseful.
Set in 2007 against a backdrop of world terrorism and within the lifetime of WWII collaborators but well before the Charlie Hebdo attack and later attacks that hit popular Paris nightspots, the book seems almost prescient. It's one of those books that you can't put down, especially if you love the City of Light, which is almost a character in the book. There is a real sense of place, of the non-tourist Paris, of a Paris of street cleaners, maids, forgers, journalists, small Thai restaurants, and shadowy characters whose identity doesn't become clear until very near the end of the book. It's the Paris of the Marais, the Bois de Vincennes and Père-Lachaise Cemetery, with the Eiffel Tower looming ominously over all. Downie's intimate knowledge of Paris, makes every movement of his protagonist through the city ring with authenticity. It's an insider's Paris.
Jay, the protagonist, reminds me in several ways of Roger O. Thornhill (ROT) of Hitchcock's North by Northwest, and we know how admired Hitchcock is in Paris. Like Thornhill, Jay A. Grant (JAG) is not entirely innocent, and like Thornhill, he's inadvertently caught up in something beyond his understanding but he's unable to go to the police for help. Who are the good guys? And who are the bad? Can he trust that mysterious woman he meets on a plane? Who can he trust? They face similar predicaments and, of course, that means Jay must unravel the mystery on his own.
As with Downie's other works, this one is well-researched. You will learn about Louis Daguerre's marvelous invention the daguerreotype and his friend Robert Morse's code. Early photography and the art of decipherment play prominent roles in this suspenseful story. And the resolution is pure edge of the seat stuff. I literally stopped reading some twenty pages before the end of the book because it was almost 1 a.m. and I needed to get to sleep. But darned if I didn't have to get up two restless hours later and finish it. Wow! Things happen fast in the City of Night!
This one would make a great film!
Set in 2007 against a backdrop of world terrorism and within the lifetime of WWII collaborators but well before the Charlie Hebdo attack and later attacks that hit popular Paris nightspots, the book seems almost prescient. It's one of those books that you can't put down, especially if you love the City of Light, which is almost a character in the book. There is a real sense of place, of the non-tourist Paris, of a Paris of street cleaners, maids, forgers, journalists, small Thai restaurants, and shadowy characters whose identity doesn't become clear until very near the end of the book. It's the Paris of the Marais, the Bois de Vincennes and Père-Lachaise Cemetery, with the Eiffel Tower looming ominously over all. Downie's intimate knowledge of Paris, makes every movement of his protagonist through the city ring with authenticity. It's an insider's Paris.
Jay, the protagonist, reminds me in several ways of Roger O. Thornhill (ROT) of Hitchcock's North by Northwest, and we know how admired Hitchcock is in Paris. Like Thornhill, Jay A. Grant (JAG) is not entirely innocent, and like Thornhill, he's inadvertently caught up in something beyond his understanding but he's unable to go to the police for help. Who are the good guys? And who are the bad? Can he trust that mysterious woman he meets on a plane? Who can he trust? They face similar predicaments and, of course, that means Jay must unravel the mystery on his own.
As with Downie's other works, this one is well-researched. You will learn about Louis Daguerre's marvelous invention the daguerreotype and his friend Robert Morse's code. Early photography and the art of decipherment play prominent roles in this suspenseful story. And the resolution is pure edge of the seat stuff. I literally stopped reading some twenty pages before the end of the book because it was almost 1 a.m. and I needed to get to sleep. But darned if I didn't have to get up two restless hours later and finish it. Wow! Things happen fast in the City of Night!
This one would make a great film!
August 29, 2009
Paris is known as the City of Lights but in this novel of suspense, Paris City of Night, journalist and travel writer David Downie shows us a seamier and more sinister side of the famous city where he lives and writes.
There are police everywhere in the city because of the constant threat of terrorism, many of the buildings are old, dusty, and fragile, and the past is ever present.
The novel begins in 1950, with George Henri in a photography darkroom developing a picture of a man with round glasses in a raincoat and panama hat, leaning on the deck of a ship. We find out the man is Adolf Eichmann leaving France by boat for Buenos Aires.
Shift to Paris in 2007 and the image of an old woman in her 90s, having delusions, nightmares, and reliving the past fitfully. We find out she is Madeleine de Lafayette, a Resistance fighter in her youth during the war, and "a key player in the misguided Allied effort to fight Communism by smuggling Nazis to freedom." (publisher's description).
Her protege, photographer Jay Grant returns from a trip and finds Madeleine has died and an item in her photo collection sold at auction. A daguerreotype Jay had made some years back was sold for an outrageous price, given it was a forgery. Frantic to recover this copy and others, to keep out of jail, Jay goes about tracing the unknown seller of the item. This begins a long and strange journey where he discovers secrets about his father "the spook", about Madeleine, and more about the use of darregueotypes to send encrypted messages during the war.
When the man he is following is killed and attempts are made on his life, Jay becomes frantic and enlists the help of his fiancee Amy, a journalist in Paris. How does the past link to the present? Who from the past has killed Madeleine and others and for what reason?
The plot is complex, changes direction midstream, and takes you to a different ending than the one you imagined. I would have preferred less detail about the history of photography, encryption, and daguerreotype. I think a different genre would have been better to showcase all the information the author has woven into the book. For a mystery novel, the amount of information was a bit overwhelming. In certain parts, I got impatient for the story to move on.
Overall though, Paris City of Night has a very good plot with a lot of fast action, chase scenes, and atmosphere. There is excellent characterization and descriptions of time and place. In other words, I got a good sense of Paris as a City of Night.
There are police everywhere in the city because of the constant threat of terrorism, many of the buildings are old, dusty, and fragile, and the past is ever present.
The novel begins in 1950, with George Henri in a photography darkroom developing a picture of a man with round glasses in a raincoat and panama hat, leaning on the deck of a ship. We find out the man is Adolf Eichmann leaving France by boat for Buenos Aires.
Shift to Paris in 2007 and the image of an old woman in her 90s, having delusions, nightmares, and reliving the past fitfully. We find out she is Madeleine de Lafayette, a Resistance fighter in her youth during the war, and "a key player in the misguided Allied effort to fight Communism by smuggling Nazis to freedom." (publisher's description).
Her protege, photographer Jay Grant returns from a trip and finds Madeleine has died and an item in her photo collection sold at auction. A daguerreotype Jay had made some years back was sold for an outrageous price, given it was a forgery. Frantic to recover this copy and others, to keep out of jail, Jay goes about tracing the unknown seller of the item. This begins a long and strange journey where he discovers secrets about his father "the spook", about Madeleine, and more about the use of darregueotypes to send encrypted messages during the war.
When the man he is following is killed and attempts are made on his life, Jay becomes frantic and enlists the help of his fiancee Amy, a journalist in Paris. How does the past link to the present? Who from the past has killed Madeleine and others and for what reason?
The plot is complex, changes direction midstream, and takes you to a different ending than the one you imagined. I would have preferred less detail about the history of photography, encryption, and daguerreotype. I think a different genre would have been better to showcase all the information the author has woven into the book. For a mystery novel, the amount of information was a bit overwhelming. In certain parts, I got impatient for the story to move on.
Overall though, Paris City of Night has a very good plot with a lot of fast action, chase scenes, and atmosphere. There is excellent characterization and descriptions of time and place. In other words, I got a good sense of Paris as a City of Night.
December 4, 2013
Jay Grant son of a CIA agent is a journalist turned photography historian / expert uncovers some strange happenings, his journalistic instincts take over, and starts to investigate, drawing himself and girlfriend Amy further and further into danger. Set in Paris this spook thriller has the feel of actually being set in Paris a hundred years earlier. The description and detail of early photography creates this effect, even although the mobile phone and other present day devices are ever present. This is a book you have to work at, as the action does not really grip you until well into the second half. Overall it is an okay book but, could have been much better with less photography lesson and more action.
December 4, 2013
Jay Grant, the son of a deceased CIA agent, returns to Paris, his adopted city to find his wealthy aunt has died suddenly. He tries to find out how she died and gets embroiled in a plot involving US Homeland security, shadowy characters in a well respected charitable organization and old friends of Jay's deceased parents.
The author lives in Paris and uses his familiarity with that city to provide backdrops for this thriller.
The author lives in Paris and uses his familiarity with that city to provide backdrops for this thriller.
April 5, 2014
Jay, a french-american photographer and past forger, returning from a trip to New York is almost immediately plunged into a dangerous cat and mouse game of intrigue and danger. The book is interesting, but at times loses its way when trying to catch us up on pieces of the puzzle that are integral to the story. I don't think I really liked many of the characters, even the ones I was supposed to care about. I did find some of the WWII French Resistance backstory to be very interesting.
April 19, 2011
Without ever having actually been to Paris, the reader feels as if they are there and rounding every corner with the characters. This really is one book that is impossible to put down. I do believe it is time for me to read it again. I know I will enjoy it just as much this time around.
January 17, 2014
Fun, quick thriller. Full of Parisian locales and mysterious characters, I enjoyed the story and the style.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews