Title:
City of light, city of poison : murder, magic, and the first police chief of Paris / Holly Tucker.
ISBN:
9780393239782
Personal Author:
Edition:
First edition.
Publication Information:
New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, [2017]
©2017
Physical Description:
xxiii, 310 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm
Contents:
A note on currency -- Burn notice -- Part I: "Day and night they kill here". Crime capital of the world -- City of light -- Street at the end of the world -- To market -- Part II: King of hearts. Agitation without disorder -- Dew and the torrent -- Door marked 1 -- "He will ... strangle me" -- Part III: "She will turn us all into poisoners". Golden viper -- "Madame is dying, madame is dead!" -- Poison in the pie -- An alchemist's last words -- Faithful servant -- "Brinvilliers is in the air" -- Part IV: "Cease your scandals". House of porcelain -- Offering -- "The sneakiest and meanest woman in the world" -- "Burn after reading" -- Dinner guests -- Question -- Monsters -- Part V: "She gave her soul gently to the Devil". Quanto -- Search and seizure -- A noble pair -- Burning chamber -- "Beginning to talk" -- Fortune-teller -- "From one fire to another" -- Part VI: Wicked truths. Poisoner's daughter -- Sacrifices -- "A strange agitation" -- Lock and key.
Summary:
Nicolas de La Reynie, appointed by Louis XIV as the first police chief of Paris, pursues criminals through the labyrinthine neighborhoods of the city, unearths a tightly knit cabal of poisoners, witches, and renegade priests, and discovers that the distance between the quiet backstabbing world of the king's court and the criminal underground is disturbingly short. As he continues his investigations, La Reynie suspects that Louis's mistresses are involved in many of the nefarious plots he has uncovered, and he must decide just how far he will go to protect his king. Tucker has crafted a gripping true-crime tale of deception and murder based on thousands of pages of court transcripts and La Reynie's notebooks, letters, and diaries.
Personal Subject:
Geographic Term:
OCLC Number:
ocn951070822
Availability:
Rosemount - Robert Trail~1
Eagan - Wescott~1
