The Paris Enigma
By Pablo De Santis; HarperCollins
Pages: 324; Price: Rs 295
Buy Borrow Avoid
The Paris Enigma by Pablo De Santis is a book that was originally written in Spanish and has been translated into English for international readers. The book recently won De Santis the inaugural Premio Planeta-Casa de América de Narrativa prize for best Latin American novel.
Set during the end of the 19th century in Buenos Aires and Paris, this is no run-of-the-mill murder mystery. The focus is more on the art of detection and the psychology of detectives than it is on solving crimes. The story is related by a young wannabe detective, Sigmundo Salvatrio, who grows up solving jigsaw puzzles and hero-worshipping the feats ‘Twelve Detectives’, an internationally-acclaimed group of sleuths whose success stories are published worldwide. Fate lends our eager protagonist a helping hand and he finds himself, along with several other young men, as a pupil of the local detective, Renato Craig.
Craig is the only one of the Twelve Detective who does not have an apprentice. His young students are convinced that they are being tutored by the great man so that he may be able to pick an apprentice from one of their number. But a sudden tragedy disbands the class, puts Craig out of commission and sets Salvatrio on his first voyage to Paris. Salvatrio’s mission is to represent Craig in the first meeting of the Twelve Detectives who are getting together to represent their craft in the World’s Fair. The young man, who has grown up on the stories of this band of mystery solvers, feels he is headed for the biggest adventure of his life.
Do detectives follow crime or does crime follow detectives? This becomes a question of some import when one of the detectives, the Parisian Louis Darbon, is found dead at the base of the Eiffel Tower. It is up to the remaining detectives and their acolytes to discover the murderer. Viktor Arzaky, a close friend of Craig’s and an important figure in the Twelve Detectives group, temporarily takes on Salvatrio as his assistant.
But things are seldom as they seem, especially when it comes to men who solve their lives solving enigmas and sometimes are enigmas themselves. We discover that the group has ugly undercurrents of hate and jealousies running through it that threaten its very existence. Will they be able to discover who killed Darbon? Will they survive the feelings of bitterness that run below the surface of their superficial camaraderie? Will Salvatrio acquit himself well now that he is faced with a real mystery?
This is more than crime simple novel, it is a psychological exploration: it allows its reader to peek inside the heads of the detectives and see how they approach their craft. On the plus side, it is well-written with an easy fluid style that will have you turning the pages to see what happens next. However, the book has too many characters: the twelve detectives, their twelve assistants and a host of other minor characters; it’s an impossible task to keep track of them all. Read it if you want to try something different, but don’t pick it up expecting an Agatha Christie or even a Raymond Chandler.
Book Reviews 
The Paris Enigma
