Novel set in Cambridge, Paris and Dubai
Dark thriller set in PARIS
12th February 2024
The Messenger by Megan Davis, dark thriller set in PARIS.
“Rosamund Lupton meets Lupin”: This is the strap-line that drew me to this novel, as I like both the novelist’s work and Lupin on TV. There is indeed a touch of the former but this story does not deliver on the latter – wry humour, which is so characteristic of the TV series, simply isn’t present. Lupin was probably referenced because of the series’ setting, although the backdrop for the show depicts a very different, and more polished Paris/France in contrast to the downbeat and sordid city depicted in this book.
This is a coming-of-age novel very much set in a dark and dismal Paris. Tourists generally understand that the city has a darker heart than is at first sight apparent, one that feels desolate and dangerous on so many levels.
Teenager Alex is living with his father in Paris, his mother is in New York. The relationship he has with each parent is dysfunctional; his father drinks, tends to walk around the flat in the nude, undermines his son and is generally unpleasant; he also thinks nothing of bedding the mothers of Alex’s fellow classmates. Alex’s experiences of life at home, therefore, result in deep self-loathing, and the stress of his friendless situation at school heightens bouts of eczema all over his body. He finds himself associating with Sami, a homeless young man and together they are eventually accused of the murder of Alex’s father. A jail sentence ensues and the storyline switches between the periods before and after incarceration, having each been found guilty of murder. Alex is adamant that the two young men were not responsible for the killing and once released, he comes to understand that his father, in his role of journalist, was investigating something and that it is no coincidence that a second journalist has been murdered. Alex is driven to try and understand what has been happening, so that he can perhaps exonerate himself, and he finds himself descending into a morass of intrigue and danger.
Having set the early scene, the storyline spins off into a world of drugs, as Alex is egged on by two classmates to supply certain commodities, which inevitably does not hold him in good stead at his trial.
At the heart of the narrative is a good premise but there are just so many themes causing the storyline to get bogged down, lose its focus, and, at times, it just didn’t seem to know where it was going. The author is an acute observer of people and their proclivities but it felt all so astutely pejorative and grimly real that it evoked a mild sense of disgust in me. The migrant crisis, local responses and camps form another backdrop, as Alex finds himself confronted by the undercurrents within the milieu.
I listened to this as an audiobook, narrated by actor Adam Sims, who assumes a monotone and nasal American voice à la Stanley Tucci and then moves to different accents to distinguish the different characters. The slightly downbeat tenor of the narration, without a lot of undulation, added to the gloom and although it didn’t put me off, I found it hard to engage. The style somehow also mirrored the 1950/60s Cold War vibe of the bookcover, which doesn’t really represent the main body of the storyline.
The seamier side of Paris is certainly well depicted in this novel.
Tina for the TripFiction Team
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