October 1793 Paris and the first decapitated body is found. An police agent Ravel is instructed to quietly determine the murderer. Difficult when there seems to be no pattern to the killings. And with the backdrop of the continuing revolution, regicide, and the mass guillotining of people for minor crimes.
Immensely satisfying read (and in places sad), with characters wonderfully drawn out. ( )

The Cavalier of the Apocalypse
Palace of Justice

I read these two back to back, something I rarely do with series novels. As it happened, they were both on my Kindle at a time when I felt like reading something on my Kindle. I finished the first, enjoyed it, and went right on to the second.

Actually I began with the third, Game of Patience, which had the earliest publication date. I quickly discovered that the two later titles preceded the first in narrative chronology, and so I put it aside in order to start with the backstory.

The setting is Paris during the French Revolution, a time of political turmoil and much shedding of blood, with the fanatical partisans of the Republic seeing foes everywhere, not only among closet royalists but even among less extreme advocates of their own cause.

Aristide Ravel begins as a political pamphleteer at a time when anonymous screeds of dubious veracity play a significant role in public affairs. A gruesome discovery causes him to be drawn into a police investigation of a series of bizarre murders. His participation is critical to the solution. In due course, if reluctantly, he becomes an assistant to the police inspector. Their work takes them into all quarters of Parisian life during one of the most turbulent periods of its history.

Alleyn's narratives have a strong feel of authenticity to them, a quality that I value highly in fiction. Despite a few traits that began to get on my nerves--particularly Ravel's recurring habit of mentally chasing something he can't quite remember, which suddenly becomes clear just in time to furnish a major clue--I liked the detective hero and the mysteries he solves. I will be continuing on to the third in the series. ( )

Towards the end of the 1700s, the French Revolution has overthrown the monarchy and introduced many a royalist to Madame Guillotine and the executioners who keep her well oiled and sharpened. The Revolutionary Tribunal passes more and more death sentences on all unfortunate enough to be found guilty when they are brought before them.

In Paris, Marie Antoinette's trial looms and headless corpses are being dumped around Paris. There is a serial killer lose among the citizens, one who appears to choose his victims indiscriminately. Aristide Ravel is summoned to investigate these murders, preferably find the victims' heads and to do so as quietly as possible.

The apparent absence of a pattern in the murders intrigues him, but he's distracted by the impending trail of some of his childhood friends who, although part of the revolution, unfortunately backed the wrong party and are now imprisoned awaiting trial and their very probable execution. His investigations lead him to uncover a 30 year-old injustice and a plan to make the English think France unstable.

This is one of the most enjoyable historical mystery series I've read in a long time. ( )

First off, a warning: although Palace of Justice is the fourth published Aristide Ravel mystery by Susanne Alleyn, and the third digitised for Kindle (my enforced reading order), the events in this novel take place during the Revolution, some years before A Game of Patience and A Treasury of Regrets. The main plots of each novel stand alone, so reading order doesn't make much of a difference in that respect, but a personal tragedy for Ravel in Palace affects his character development in the 'first' two books, and various other minor characters make reappearances. I can only assume that The Cavalier of the Apocalypse, the first novel chronologically but fourth in print order, will make no sense whatsoever, when finally released on Kindle! Clever readers will probably already know about the series order, but I just thought I would add a caveat from experience.

Susanne Alleyn is a talented writer and her books are always a joy to read, particularly for another French Revolution aficianado, but the mystery of this story fell flat for me - too many 'small world' coincidences, and the killer was obvious - even to me! - from the first time they appeared. Where the sleuthing failed, however, the history - and the author's subtle skill at bringing revolutionary Paris to life - won the day yet again. Ravel's personal demons are perhaps one too many - no wonder he remains the eternal bachelor, given his track record of legally sanctioned bereavements - but the turbulent city he inhabits, both before and after the Revolution, is vividly realistic. The murders which Ravel and Brasseur are called in to investigate are horrifically gruesome, yet strangely plausible for the place and time. And Alleyn's characters are neither wholly republican - the safe bet with most historical fiction set in 1790s Paris - nor as defiantly aristocratic as the Baroness Orczy's Scarlet Pimpernel novels. One of my favourite quotes comes from Ravel's friend, a disillusioned republican heading for the guillotine (so to speak): "We all played our part in making a mess of it, didn't we? Face it; we've been feeling our way, all this time, like blind men at the top of a cliff, and half the time we've been walking right over the edge."

A well-researched, neatly told historical novel, with a flawed but fascinating mystery to feed the story. Start with A Cavalier of the Apocalypse if you can, but A Game of Patience is an equally strong introduction. ( )

This the second book of the Aristide Ravel historical mystery series chronologically within the story but the fourth to be published. Though I loved loved loved "The Cavalier of the Apocalypse" (third published; first in chronology), and very much enjoyed A Treasury of Regrets and Game of Patience, this one ~ Palace of Justice ~ is my favorite! Ms. Alleyn's really hit her stride with this one!

The mystery portions of Palace are clever and twisty, though I thought it less a whodunnit than a procedural coupled with a study of what fanatasism and madness does to a society as a whole and to individuals in particular. As usual, though, it is Ravel's story and the historical period that sucked me in. While immersed in the novel, I was pretty much there with Ravel in the gritty heart of Paris a couple of years after the beginning of the Revolution, during The Terror, with all of its paranoia, hysteria and death. There are heart-wrenching scenes of the revolutionary tribunals in action, and of Madame Guillotine doing her bloody work, attended by a fascinating historical character, Sanson. Between the executions of political prisoners and criminals, a serial killer is stalking the people of Paris. Headless corpses of all classes literally litter the ground.

Palace of Justice is, not to put to fine a point on it, sublime, and I highly recommend it (and the entire series) to those who love good historical mysteries. ( )