“The Paris Apartment” is a locked room mystery that is set in an eerie apartment in Paris. The novel sets off on a high note - Jess, a young woman who has left her job in less than ideal circumstances arrives at Paris to stay with her step-brother Ben, but finds him missing. While she is on pursuit to find Ben, she stumbles upon secrets that the apartment and its residents hold. Are these secrets the reason for Ben’s disappearance? Was Jess too late to save Ben? With this intriguing premise, does the novel live up to the expectations?
The novel is presented with each character narrating their side of the story, very similar to Lucy Foley’s “The Guest List”. The timeline is sometimes confusing in the non-linear narrative style that the novel adopts. There is enough depth to the backstories of each of the characters, but the novel takes too much time to establish the relationship between the characters and the mystery connection each one of them has with Ben. The novel presents twisted relationships, dysfunctional families and the inner battles which the characters go through in a convincing manner.
The revelation towards the climax is a great twist, but do the readers have to go through the snail-paced build up to that revelation? Though the mystery in the novel piles up, there is not much happening within the confined atmosphere of the Paris apartment and it makes us wonder at one point where the novel is headed.
The Paris Apartment - Despite a brilliant and convincing twist at the end, the novel tests our patience with its slow paced narration.
