The Paris Apartment: From the No.1 Sunday Times and multi-million copy bestseller comes a gripping new murder mystery thriller for 2022

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I highly recommend this novel to those who like a mystery with unreliable narrators, many secrets to unravel, great characters and a fantastic atmosphere. i plowed through this book in a day, getting up at 3 am on my day off so i could finish it before starting my other-job work at 5 as i had planned.

The tenants are not friendly, appearing guilty and have secrets to hide, but very wealthy. They are all leery of her unexpected appearance and questions. Their plans are set in motion, which include to be rid of Jess. The Concierge knows all their secrets and warns her to stop looking for answers. I liked the creep atmosphere, slowly building tension, short and effective chapters, eccentric voices of multi POVs! When Jess arrives at her brother Ben’s new apartment in Paris, ready to escape from her old life in London, he is nowhere to be found. What she unearths within the first few hours of being there tells her something terrible has happened to her brother. But what…and why…

Detailed Plot Summary

Option 2: Tighten the Events -- If Bowen felt the need to keep both narrative threads, I would have advised her to shorten the time span she was covering in both threads. There is much in her plots that was work that she could have kept in her preparation file folders, work that an author needs to do but that readers don't need to read. Had Bowen dropped us right into the middle of the Paris Ritz and the mission, she could have deepened the tension and provided much more detail. The same goes for her parallel tale in today's France, dropping the poor romance and focusing, instead, on the much more compelling mystery she'd concocted for her contemporary characters. I literally flew through this book. It’s just so good and every one is fascinating in their own way.” The narrators are largely unlikeable and mostly unreliable. They all have secrets to hide, some darker than others, and some interconnected. THE ATMOSPHERE – A creepy, old, but once elegant apartment building in Paris – what’s not to like? Once elegant but now showing it’s age with peeling wallpaper, no air conditioning, nothing really updated about these apartments. The Paris Apartment is a thriller about a journalist who mysteriously disappeared while living in an odd apartment building in Paris.

Jess arrives in Paris at the apartment of her half-brother, Ben. However, Ben isn't answering any of her texts, is nowhere to be found, and there are some unsettling discoveries in the apartment. Will Jess be able to find out what happened to Ben? What went on in this apartment?This is a hard skip it. Stuff does get explained at the end, but the ending isn’t particularly clever or interesting. Moreover, the book proceeds along so clunkily with little discernible plot for a vast majority of the book. For me, the “meh” ending definitely wasn’t worth the tedious and slow lead-up.

What a FANTASTIC CAST of actors, this AUDIBLE has! I am sure this book will make my favorite Audible list in 2022 because of them! First of all, how great to be in Paris as it adds an atmosphere all of its own especially as the city is a boiling pot of political unrest which perfectly matches the events in Rue des Amants. Secondly, the house is a star of its own show as the author cleverly uses all its nooks, crannies and corners to create a very strange and tense atmosphere which you feel right from the very start. There are spooky shadows, you wonder what evil lurks in the dark corners and it ramps up the tension with a growing sense of claustrophobia as if the walls are closing in. You have a really good whodunnit here as several characters behave oddly or suspiciously, some are downright sinister or there’s palpable hostility between characters and there’s an increased feeling of foreboding which hangs over the house. The warnings, threats and dangers magnify in intensity and it becomes apparent that there big secrets that people are intent on keeping buried. The plot builds well as revelation piles on revelation. There’s a good twist at the end although maybe it’s all ultimately resolved a bit too easily? He stops speaking. Hesitates, listens. A noise. The sound of footsteps out on the landing . . . approaching the apartment door. Instead of some huge climax where everyone is fighting, Jess finds Ben alive but very injured. Eventually, Sophie lets them go so that Mimi can stay safe. i also like the hooky tagline—your typical breakfast-club round-up of character types, with a nice little endrhyme:

In terms of the writing, it tries so hard to sound ominous, but it came off as super cheesy to me, which detracted from the atmosphere of the book. I found myself repeatedly wondering, “ Why am I reading this?” Arriving in the dark days of February, Lucy Foley’s The Paris Apartment nevertheless feels like the most entertaining sort of summer thriller, a fast-paced, twisty bit of escapism that mixes compelling, messy characters, deft narrative red herrings, shifting perspectives, and a few genuine surprises to create a story that’ll keep you up reading well into the night.

I was floored! I did not see that coming at all. Did you see that reveal? I thought it was interesting and surprising. THE WRITING – Ms. Foley’s writing is fluid, flows well and is very descriptive. I felt myself immersed in the heat of a Paris summer, riots breaking out in the city, tourists sweltering in the heat!! Lots of dirt and garbage behind the facade of the “beautiful city” with it’s Eiffel tower and The Louvre. no time to review yet, but i gotta say—and maybe this is just my patterson-overload talking—this one is leaps and bounds better than her first two agatha christie wannabes, which i enjoyed in an entertainment kind of way, even though they were basically the same book. this one is more ambitious, more surprising, more satisfying in every way, even though—trigger warning—she never feeds that cat ONCE, and it was giving me serious stress the whole time. FEED YOUR CATS, PEOPLE!When a woman inherits a Parisian apartment undisturbed since WWII, she discovers that it may hold the key to unraveling her cold and distant great-grandmother's secret life -- a past of sacrifice during a mission to protect those she loved.” Not the case here. This is an incredibly well written book which could have been no easy feat as the structure is very unique and pretty complicated. Jess breaks into the apartment to wait and finds a cat covered in blood, and more questions than answers. Can she trust any of the others living in this building to help her find her brother? As Jess digs deeper into the residents at Bienvenue au 12, Rue des Amants she finds that the neighbors are none too happy to see her. Jess is determined and tough and won’t give up until she finds out the TRUTH, AS DARK AS IT MAY BE!!!