First published 1980
Paris, 1861. Detective Inspector Lamarck walks the gaslit streets of a city gripped by an unusual obsession. A conjurer has arrived with a mechanical fortune-telling device that draws crowds from every quarter. Citizens line up for hours to hear their futures predicted by this strange contraption. What begins as curious entertainment becomes something more troubling as the machine's influence spreads through the capital. Lamarck approaches the case with the methodical instincts of a seasoned investigator, but the conjurer and his device resist conventional police work. The detective finds himself navigating between the rational world of criminal investigation and something that defies logical explanation. As he digs deeper into the mystery, Lamarck discovers that solving this case will require him to question not just what he knows about crime, but what he believes about reality itself. The streets of Paris become a battleground between skepticism and wonder, with one detective caught in the middle.
Genres: historical-fiction, mystery, thriller, detective, paranormal, 19th-century
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: detective-story, mystery-thriller, rational-vs-irrational
Setting: Paris
Period: 1861
195 pages · Paperback · Bantam Books