Find City Of Darkness And Light (Molly Murphy, #13) Compiled By Rhys Bowen Shown In Document
prepared to be wowed by luckyin the Molly Murphy mystery series, It is the second of the series to take place primarily outside of New York City, in another country, The country this time is France, and the city is Paris in its heyday of cutting edge artists and intellectuals, The year is, and major cities, such as New York and Paris, are bursting with history and change upon which the twentieth century will be built, Rhys Bowen once again seamlessly weaves the fiction of Molly's exploits with this metamorphic history, and the reader is presented with historical figures integrally enmeshed in the story line.
Of course, one of the strengths of Bowen's writing is transporting readers to an earlier time and place through her well researched connections of people to plot, The Paris of, at the zenith of seminal modernist artists, provides a bevy of reallife characters, such as Degas, Picasso, Monet, and Cassatt, And, the places of Montmartre and Montparnasse will become wonderfully familiar, Bowen even works the Dreyfus affair and Gertrude Stein into a story where the history of Jewish discrimination is evident,
As City of Darkness and Light begins, Molly has no thoughts of Paris and famous artists, other than the occasional letter from her friends Sid and Gus, who have traveled to that progressive city in order for Gus to explore her artistic endeavors.
Molly is quite happy with her new family of her husband Daniel and son Liam, However, Daniel's police business intrudes into their lives in a most devastating manner, as retaliation from the newly formed Costa Nostra takes the form of a bomb that destroys Molly and Daniel's cozy home and very nearly costs them their lives.
The solution to keeping Molly and Liam safe while Daniel searches for answers to the bombing is for Molly to take refuge with Sid and Gus in Paris.
Molly and Liam sail for the safety of Paris, but, to Molly's dismay, her friends are not there to meet her and have seemingly disappeared, In Molly's attempt to locate her missing friends, she stumbles into a murder of a famous American artist who has resided in Paris for twenty years, Molly's journey to locate Sid and Gus will take her into the heart of the artist community and require her yet once more to unscrabble a mystery of complex scope.
Molly also discovers that the Paris Surete is no fonder of interference than the New York Ciy police,
Followers of the Molly Murphy series will be well pleased with Molly's latest excursion into murder and mayhem, Although now a married woman and a mother, Molly hasn't lost any of her drive and determination to use her powers of detection in solving yet another confounding death and clear the names of the innocent.
This lady is made of far sterner stuff than sugar and spice and everything nice, and she never ceases to win us over with her unconventional bravado, A bomb explores in the Sullivan's home burning it and killing the maid as she protected Liam, Daniel decides to send Molly and Liam to Paris to keep them safe, After a voyage Molly arrives in Paris to Sid and Gus missing, Looking for them Molly encounters the Paris police when trying to question a person who might know where they have gone, Molly begins to wonder if they are safe, Dear author:
Please spell Dreyfusard correctly, There should be a y every time, not just some of the time,
Please be consistent with character names i, e. in the same conversation the housekeeper should not refer to Reynold Bryce as M, Bryce, Mr. Bryce and Monsieur Bryce. Pick one and stick with it,
The Dreyfus affair began in, and exploded inwith the acquittal of Esterhazy and Zola's J'accuse, and continued with theretrial, Init was still divisive, but not exactly the front page news you make it out to be,
Shameless attempts to include real people like Picasso, degas, Cassatt, Stein felt forced
We spentpages getting to France, anothertrying to find Sid and Gus and by the time Molly had a crime to solve I almost didn't care anymore.
P. S Daniel still needs an attitude adjustment The only reason I picked this book up was: Mystery! Plucky girl Detective! Paris!
Alas, I am not going to add this author to my list of mustreads.
I also could NOT believe that she walked across the street, bought a bagette, and asked the baker's wife to BABYSIT HERMONTH OLD SON, so she could wander the streets of Paris! I could not believe she put him in his crib, he fell asleep, and she WENT TO A BAR.
AND I could NOT BELIEVE that she went into her friends' apartment, smelled the turpentine and the smells of a painter, and let hermonth old son crawl around, without first doing a major MAKE IT SAFE FOR A BABY! I think the baby cried a few times when he was hungry, but she never had to deal with the normal tiredness a mom on her own with amonth old experiences.
The kid never got into any trouble! Unbelievable throughout, This book was not as engaging as prior entries, It was much slower paced and seemed to drag, Plus there was too much touring around Paris,
This was a Lets meet famous people book as well, Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Mary Cassatt, and Booth Tarkington all make an appearance, While it is possible to run into celebrities, I always find it hard to buy into it happening in a novel because it seems forced,
Realistically, what are the odds of an average person crossing paths with four famous people in three days in a city the size of Paris
Despite this, Bowen delivers an interesting murder in a tale full of twists, setbacks, and wrong turns.
And thats enough to make me keep reading this series, Another delightful Molly Murphy mystery, this time set in Paris in the early's where Molly runs into contemporary famous people such as Gertrude Stein, Degas, Booth Tarkington and Picasso.
The Dreyfus affair also plays a small part, I was sure I had the killer figured out and was pretty disappointed that it was so easy, I was wrong, although I did suspect the actual killer too, I just wasn't sure what their motive was, I have read some of the less glowing reviews here and then decided to read the book, I feared that I would be influenced but this mystery impressed me enough, For more knowledgeable people this book had warts and all, but I can only relay what I felt, Had I not had my spoilers I would have had more praise for this Parisian whodunit,
During the first fifth of the story I couldn't gloss over the boorishness of Molly's husband, Married life is fraught with desensitization, compromise, or rebellion, Molly has a finger in each of those pies, Daniel Sullivan was a charming man who courted his belle with conviction, His misogyny showed a bit even then, But only here have we readers been subject to his loutish laugh, In the light of the bombingawful pun, I know the opinion I have of him does not change, Sadly this portrait of married life is the most realistic aspect of this book,
I was looking forward to the voyage across the Atlantic, However, the author could not capture the spirit of the journey, She could not relay the quaint nature of ships of the time, Unlike other books, Molly regularly finds the stepping stones that are nice people during her entire adventure in this novel, Mrs Pinkerton was one of them, Madeleine, herself in France, would be another, I have read a couple of reviews about Molly's trivial view of her duties as a mother, What can I say I agree, but I would never have picked on that by myself,
The description of Paris is where the writer has a modicum of gusto and enthusiasm, The shameless and ridiculous use of past visual artists like Pablo heavy Spanish accent, paints raggedly, paints in blue Picasso is distracting and removes us from what makes the story real.
I thought, and I may be wrong, that so many future celebrities make the coincidence seem surreal, Not only that, but the city of Paris itself looks to be very little, Like a twobit burg. The presence of recurring character Justin Hartley adds to this feeling, The latter was unnecessary to the plot and brought nothing to the table,
I liked both Sid and Gus, I now can differentiate between the two, The locals of France had their speech presented in English, That's a welcome decision for non speaking English readers, The locals did not have their own voice, They didn't have distinctive traits, That complaint was buried whenever the detective aspects of Molly Murphy was on the rise, though, I guessed the murderer's identity way sooner than to my liking, Like everything French, it was a crime of passion, Very cliche, but there you go, Did not finish.
The book failed thepage rule,
Captain Daniel Sullivan is an annoying, obnoxious, arse, Only the fact it's a library book saved it from being thrown with great force across the room, A delightful visit to earlyth century Paris with Rhys Bowen's delightful, smart, spunky heroine Molly Murphy, Bowen is a master with historical whodunnits, producing lively characters, a fascinating setting, and a clever mystery, I love this series and this one was great I had no idea who the killer was! The only reason I didn't give itis that I felt that ending was a bit rushed, but I still enjoyed it.
Molly and Daniel Sullivan are settling happily into the new routines of parenthood, but their domestic bliss is shattered the night a gang retaliates against Daniel for making a big arrest.
Daniel wants his family safely out of New York City as soon as possible, In shock and grieving, but knowing she needs to protect their infant son Liam, Molly agrees to take him on the long journey to Paris to stay with her friends Sid and Gus, who are studying art in the City of Light.
But upon arriving in Paris, nothing goes as planned, Sid and Gus seem to have vanished into thin air, and Molly's search to figure out what happened to them will lead her through all levels of Parisian society, from extravagant salons to the dingy cafes where starving artists linger over coffee and loud philosophical debates.
And when in the course of her search she stumbles across a dead body, Molly, on her own in a foreign country, starts to wonder if she and Liam might be in even more danger in Paris than they had been at home.
As Impressionism gives way to Fauvism and Cubism, and the Dreyfus affair rocks France, Molly races through Paris to outsmart a killer in City of Darkness and Light.
Hätte ich die irische Auswanderin Molly Murphy, die sich im New York des beginnenden, Jahrhunderts mit Mut, Witz und Elan ein neues Leben aufbaut und die Neugier, mit der sie gesegnet ist, nutzbringend als Privatdetektivin einsetzt, nicht schon aus den zwölf Vorgängerbänden des hier zu besprechenden Romans 'Mord unter Künstlern' im englischen Original 'City of Darkness and Light' gekannt, sondern wäre sie mir hier in Bandzum ersten Mal über dem Weg gelaufen, so wäre es mit Gewissheit bei dieser einen Begegnung geblieben! Wahrscheinlich hätte ich dann die teils in New York, teils in Paris und teils auf einem Überseedampfer auf dem Weg nach Frankreich spielende Geschichte nicht einmal zu Ende gelesen und als uninteressant, uninspirierend und leider langweilig drei Attribute, die einem Cosy Crime, denn in dieses Genre sind Rhys Bowens MollyBücher einzureihen, nicht zueigen sein sollten zur Seite gelegt und alsbald vergessen.
Da ich der umtriebigen Molly Murphy, inzwischen nach der von mir mit Skepsis beäugten Heirat mit dem immer humorloser und despotischer werdenden New Yorker Polizisten Daniel Molly Sullivan, aber viel Sympathie entgegenbringe, gab ich dem Buch, und damit der so veränderten Protagonistin selber, eine Chance und quälte mich bis zum Ende durch und zweifle sehr, dass ich die noch folgenden Bände lesen werde!
Selten ist es eine gute Idee, Bücherserien über Gebühr auszudehnen, selbst wenn die Protagonisten noch so gut ankommen beim Publikum irgendwann lässt der Reiz nach und es stellen sich Ermüdungserscheinungen ein.
Noch dazu, wenn ein so rebellischer und eigenständiger, für die damalige Zeit geradezu revolutionärer Frauencharakter wie Molly Murphy eine unverständliche, ihr gar nicht bekommende Kehrtwendung macht und ihre Freiheit aufgibt, um einen zunehmend bornierter werdenden Macho zu heiraten, der seiner Frau kategorisch das 'Detektivspielen' untersagt was Molly bereits vor der Eheschließung wusste, aber auf ihre typische Art erstmal ignorierte.
Treusorgendes und ganz auf den Herrn des Hauses konzentriertes Hausmütterchen und jetzt auch noch Mutter des kleinen Liam, Ebenbild seines aufgeblasenen Wichtigtuers von Vater, ständig bemüht, ihrer Rolle, in der sie per se nicht hereinpasst, gerecht zu werden, sich als schlechte Mutter fühlend, wenn sie nicht von Früh bis Spät um den Säugling herumschwirrt so begegnen wir Molly, ja genau, der Molly von einst mit dem gesunden Menschenverstand, in dieser Geschichte!
Beinahe dankbar war ich für das natürlich äußerst verwerfliche Attentat der sich gerade in New York zur gefürchteten Instanz etablierenden Cosa Nostra, gegen die der Ehemann ermittelt, auf die Sullivans, bei dem das unglückselige Kindermädchen getötet und das Haus zerstört wurde.
Denn nun bestand Daniel darauf, dass seine Frau die Einladung ihrer beiden unangepassten Freundinnen Sid und Gus annimmt, denen er ansonsten wenig Sympathie entgegen bringt, und zu ihnen nach Paris reist.
Weg von Daniel, so hofft man, findet Molly vielleicht zu ihrem alten, amüsanten Selbst zurück, . .
Nach einer so ermüdend zu lesenden wie überflüssigerweise in die Länge gezogenen Schiffsreise und nach nunmehr einem Drittel des Buches kommen Molly und Sohn Liam endlich in Paris an! Und Molly stellt zu ihrem Schrecken fest, dass die beiden Freundinnen, allem Anschein nach überstürzt, ihre Wohnung verlassen haben! Wenn Molly vor einigen Jahren noch voller Neugierde und Unternehmungslust in New York gelandet war, fest entschlossen, sich nicht unterkriegen zu lassen und sich mit zupackendem Eifer eine Zukunft zu schaffen, so erleben wir jetzt eine verängstigte junge Frau, die unsicher in Paris herumtappt kilometerweit übrigens und in denkbar ungeeignetem Schuhwerk!, das Baby im Schlepptau oder es bei der Bäckersfrau an der Ecke deponierend, auf der Suche nach Sid und Gus, das Schlimmste befürchtend.
Nein, die Ehe, die sie zur Untätigkeit verdammt, tut Molly überhaupt nicht gut, beraubt sie jeglichen Selbstbewusstseins, Das wiederum tut der Geschichte nicht gut, genauso wenig, wie das prompte Zusammentreffen mit dem jungen, höchst ungebärdigen Picasso, mit Degas und Mary Cassett Künstlergrößen ihrer Zeit.
Das scheint alles viel zu sehr an den Haaren herbeigezogen, was auch für den Mord an einem rätselhaften amerikanischen Maler mit abstoßender Gesinnung gilt, über den Molly auf ihrer Odyssee durch die französische Hauptstadt stolpert und den sie, denn so kennen wir sie, unbedingt auf eigene Faust aufklären möchte.
Und endlich erlebt man einen Hauch der alten Molly, denn an ihren unüberlegten, planlosen Ermittlungsversuchen, hinter denen auch in New York schon kein System steckte, hat sich nichts geändert! Doch stellt sich der Spaß, der bei fast allen Vorgängerbänden, wenn man einmal vom letzten, bereits deutliche Schwächen aufweisenden Buch absieht, immer präsent war, diesmal nicht ein.
Man ist vielmehr froh, als sich die Dinge endlich aufklären, ebenso bemüht und ohne Originalität, wie die gesamte Geschichte auch, und man das Buch endlich zuklappen kann.
Der Abschied von Molly Murphy, die nach getaner Arbeit und der Wiedervereinigung mit Sid und Gus, die in Paris ihren Esprit verloren haben und wenn nicht zu Witzfiguren, dann doch zu komischschrulligen, nicht ernst zu nehmenden, belächelten Weibsbildern mutiert sind, so schnell wie möglich zum leidigen Daniel zurückkehren möchte, fällt diesmal nicht schwer.
Und das Interesse an ihrem weiteren Lebensweg hält sich, um es freundlich auszudrücken, in engen Grenzen, .