{"id":5177,"date":"2023-08-13T16:17:28","date_gmt":"2023-08-13T23:17:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=5177"},"modified":"2023-08-13T16:17:28","modified_gmt":"2023-08-13T23:17:28","slug":"kirsty-manning-the-paris-mystery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/kirsty-manning-the-paris-mystery\/","title":{"rendered":"Kirsty Manning: The Paris Mystery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charlotte James #1<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Following a massive upheaval in her life, Charlotte \u201cCharlie\u201d James moves to 1938 Paris to take a new job at The Times<\/em> as a correspondent. Kirsty Manning\u2019s debut novel,\u00a0The Paris Mystery<\/em>,\u00a0<\/em>follows Charlie as she gets settled in the city of love. With help from her new glamorous friend, the paper’s receptionist Violet, Charlie puts on a glittering dress and sets out to make friends with Lady Eleanor Ashworth.<\/p>\n

Lady Ashworth is a philanthropic, wealthy woman, whose main interest is in making things beautiful. She and her husband, Lord Ashworth, a British blueblood, run with a crowd of the French elite, including military men, designers, and financiers. Charlie\u2019s first assignment is covering one of Lady Ashworth\u2019s lavish parties, a circus themed affair for the cream of society. But things don\u2019t go as planned, and a rich but unpleasant investor turns up dead.<\/p>\n

A new, extremely talented photographer The Times<\/em> was eying is on the top list of suspects, along with his paramour, a fellow female reporter. But things aren\u2019t as straight forward as they seem, even though reporter Milly was holding the murder weapon. Lady Ashworth\u2019s relationship with the photographer was complicated, and the victim\u2019s financial dealings were far from straight and narrow. A lot of people, including his often cheated on wife, had a reason to want him dead.<\/p>\n

The complicated layers of Paris – which is indeed the city of love, everyone was sleeping with everyone – make the relationships between the characters even more of a snarl. Even recently divorced Charlie is drawn to an attractive, and very married, military man. Though she considers herself more demure than the Parisians, Charlie is quite in touch with and aware of her sexuality. One imagines she\u2019ll have many romantic interludes in the future.<\/p>\n

This is a light romp through glitzy Paris with a little murder on the side. It definitely dips its toes into the romance genre, too. And, given that we start in media res<\/em> with Charlie, she already feels like a lived in protagonist. It’s easy to see her carrying further books to come.<\/p>\n

\u2013 Margaret Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charlotte James #1 Following a massive upheaval in her life, Charlotte \u201cCharlie\u201d James moves to 1938 Paris to take a new job at The Times as a correspondent. Kirsty Manning\u2019s debut novel,\u00a0The Paris Mystery,\u00a0follows Charlie as she gets settled in the city of love. With help from her new glamorous friend, the paper’s receptionist Violet, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1329,1327,81,1330,1328,1195],"class_list":["post-5177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-1938-paris","tag-kirsty-manning","tag-margaret-agnew","tag-reporter","tag-the-paris-mystery","tag-vintage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5177"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5186,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5177\/revisions\/5186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}