Review: THE PARIS SECRET, Karen Swan

• this edition published 2016 by Pan Macmillan
• ISBN 978-1-4472-8029-3
• 406 pages
• author website

 Synopsis (publisher)


Not every door should be opened . . .

With stunning locations and page-turning tension, The Paris Secret is an intense and gripping tale from bestselling author Karen Swan, perfect for fans of Santa Montefiore.

Somewhere along the cobbled streets of Paris, an apartment lies thick with dust and secrets: full of priceless artworks hidden away for decades.

High-flying fine art agent Flora from London, more comfortable with the tension of a million-pound auction than a cosy candlelit dinner for two, is called in to assess these suddenly discovered treasures. As an expert in her field, she must trace the history of each painting and discover who has concealed them for so long.

Thrown in amongst the glamorous Vermeil family as they move between Paris and Antibes, Flora begins to discover that things aren’t all that they seem, while back at home her own family is recoiling from a seismic shock. The terse and brooding Xavier Vermeil seems intent on forcing Flora out of his family’s affairs - but just what is he hiding?

My Take

Here is another of those novels that sits on the outer boundary of crime fiction. Certainly crimes have been committed, long ago, perhaps even the biggest crime against humanity of all. But this novel is about whether a family will benefit from the aftermath of those crimes, or is what has happened in the past, in this instance, not what it seems?

A family's lawyers are contacted by some burglars to say that they have found a long untouched apartment. A junior clerk not well versed in the protocols to be followed in this case contacts the family and events escalate from there. He has sent them the key to the wrong apartment.

The family is controlled by a matriarch, her husband long dead. He has left instructions that the apartment is not to be opened by the family until after his wife's death. So, the family employs a fine art agent to explore and document the contents of the apartment which appears to be scores of painting and other art treasures untouched for over 70 years.

The author says the story is based on a newspaper report about a similar situation that has occurred in Paris.

There is a lot of human interest in this story particularly about how the younger members of the family will cope with their family's history about which they have, until this point, known nothing.

Very readable.

My rating 4.4

About the author
Karen Swan began her career in fashion journalism before giving it all up to raise her three children and a puppy, and to pursue her ambition of becoming a writer. She lives in the forest in Sussex, writing her books in a treehouse overlooking the Downs. Her books include Christmas at Tiffany’s, Summer at Tiffany’s, The Perfect Present, Christmas in the Snow, Christmas on Primrose Hill, The Paris Secret and The Rome Affair.