Cathy C. (cathyskye) -
Helpful Score: 1
It's been a long time since I've visited with Molly Murphy, and a lot has changed in her life. After reading City of Darkness and Light, I wonder why it took me so long to renew my acquaintance. Molly has been independent, she's been a private investigator, and I was interested to see how she was adapting to married life. We've barely scratched the surface of her new role as wife and mother when the world explodes around her in a thrilling-- and heartbreaking-- scene, and she and infant son Liam find themselves on the way to Paris.
Molly always seems to find interesting people wherever she goes, and this book is no exception. Whether it's a group of women on board ship, or the shop keepers and artists of the streets of Paris, City of Darkness and Light is filled with savory characters. Several of them are famous, and not all of them are named-- Molly wouldn't know them all, would she?-- and part of the enjoyment of reading is trying to put names to all them all.
Yes, I did love conducting my very own identity parade while I read, but some of my favorite scenes in the book involved Molly dealing with the mundane: if you don't know anyone in Paris and you don't speak the language well, how are you going to deal with a cantankerous landlady? How are you going to find a place to stay? Where is your food coming from? Who on earth is going to care for your baby while you're out trying to find your friends?
It's this mix of finding a murderer, rubbing elbows with the great and not-yet-great in the Parisian art world, and changing diapers that makes this latest Molly Murphy mystery so much fun to read. Molly's fans will be enchanted... and newcomers may very well be hooked.
Molly always seems to find interesting people wherever she goes, and this book is no exception. Whether it's a group of women on board ship, or the shop keepers and artists of the streets of Paris, City of Darkness and Light is filled with savory characters. Several of them are famous, and not all of them are named-- Molly wouldn't know them all, would she?-- and part of the enjoyment of reading is trying to put names to all them all.
Yes, I did love conducting my very own identity parade while I read, but some of my favorite scenes in the book involved Molly dealing with the mundane: if you don't know anyone in Paris and you don't speak the language well, how are you going to deal with a cantankerous landlady? How are you going to find a place to stay? Where is your food coming from? Who on earth is going to care for your baby while you're out trying to find your friends?
It's this mix of finding a murderer, rubbing elbows with the great and not-yet-great in the Parisian art world, and changing diapers that makes this latest Molly Murphy mystery so much fun to read. Molly's fans will be enchanted... and newcomers may very well be hooked.
Leanne D. (eclecticmusicmama) reviewed City of Darkness and Light (Molly Murphy, Bk 13) on + 426 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
I've read all of Rhys Bowen's book and the Molly Murphy series is a favorite.
While I agree with the other reviewer about the interesting people Molly meets in Paris and the experience of being in a strange land, I found this book to have more day to day wanderings and less action than the other mysteries in this series. As an artist, I expected to really like her interactions with the artists of that era in Paris, but found the book to drag a little.
This book got off to such a fast start that I thought we would see her solving two mysteries in one book, one in America and one in Paris, but I felt like I was left hanging at the end of the book about her future in NY. I guess this will be another book, hopefully.
This was a good book, but definitely not the best of the series, in my opinion.
While I agree with the other reviewer about the interesting people Molly meets in Paris and the experience of being in a strange land, I found this book to have more day to day wanderings and less action than the other mysteries in this series. As an artist, I expected to really like her interactions with the artists of that era in Paris, but found the book to drag a little.
This book got off to such a fast start that I thought we would see her solving two mysteries in one book, one in America and one in Paris, but I felt like I was left hanging at the end of the book about her future in NY. I guess this will be another book, hopefully.
This was a good book, but definitely not the best of the series, in my opinion.
Good read
Thomas F. (hardtack) -
"Rhys Bowen's most spectacular Molly Murphy novel yet."
Not quite. Although I picked the wrong person as the murderer, I gave the book only three stars.
Not quite. Although I picked the wrong person as the murderer, I gave the book only three stars.
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, Rhys Bowen's most spectacular Molly Murphy novel yet.
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, Rhys Bowen's most spectacular Molly Murphy novel yet.
