The French Revolution may have resulted in liberty for some, but Alleyn's latest dispatch from Revolutionary France (A Far Better Rest, 2000) examines the lives of those left behind. Police investigator Aristide Ravel brings knowledge and sympathy to the double murder of a wealthy young woman, Célie Montereau, in the apartment of a second victim, bachelor Louis Saint-Ange, who "lived on his rents"--profits from systematic extortion. Although her father, prominent Citizen Montereau, denies it, Célie appears to have been one of his victims. Aristide questions her young brother, her elderly aunt, who refuses to call anyone "Citizen," and an unlikely friend of hers, Citizeness Rosalie Clément, a genteel and impoverished woman acquainted with disappointments far beyond naïve young Célie's experience. Finding himself drawn to the candid and bitter Rosalie, Aristide discovers against his will that there's more to her life than her quiet misery at a down-at-heels boarding house. The double murder he's investigating, an apparently unrelated series of murders of fashionable men, and several unhappy love affairs, all end by coming together on the guillotine's scaffold. Alleyn simultaneously considers the destruction caused by the Revolution as well as the smaller domestic mysteries of love lost and betrayed. The result can be compelling if sometimes over-ambitious and pretentious. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

After A Far Better Rest (2000), an homage to Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, Alleyn returns to postrevolutionary Paris in her second novel, a taut police procedural. In the fall of 1796, police spy Aristide Ravel, who's haunted by fears that he has helped send dozens of innocent victims to the guillotine, and his employer, Commissaire Brasseur, investigate the slaying of Jean-Louis Saint-Ange, a property owner who lived on his rents, and Saint-Ange's ex-lover, Celie Montereau. Saint-Ange had apparently been extorting money from aristocratic families, and few, including his colorful porter, Grangier, mourn his demise. Despite qualms about "mistakenly being the cause of a man's death," Aristide dutifully interviews anxious former associates of Celie and her well-to-do parents in search of the truth. Full of authentic historical detail, ranging from the rise of General Bonaparte to the antics of flamboyant incroyables (cross-dressers), the story builds to an emotionally charged climax in which Aristide reveals painful secrets from his own past. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Alleyn brought revolutionary-era France to life vividly in her debut novel, A Far Better Rest (2000), a reimagining of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, and she revisits the era in this mystery. Aristide Ravel, an associate of the police force, is called in when Louis Saint-Ange, a man of means but questionable repute, is found murdered alongside a young woman. At first Ravel and his associate, Commissaire Brasseur, focus on Saint-Ange, a blackmailer with dirt on many upper-class denizens, but when they identify the girl as Celie Montereau, a young woman from a wealthy family, they begin to dig into the girl's past only to discover she bore an illegitimate child and had a clandestine lover. Ravel and Brasseur track the young man, but even as the evidence mounts against him, Ravel fears he might be innocent and loathes the idea of convicting an innocent man in an climate that has already seen so much bloodshed. Grounded by a complex, haunted hero, the suspense in this layered mystery builds slowly but reaches a breakneck speed. --Kristine Huntley Copyright 2006 Booklist

It is 1796 in a Paris trying to regain some semblance of order after the Reign of Terror (1793-94). Aristide Ravel investigates major crimes for his friend Police Commissaire Brasseur. Already doubting the justice system that is in place, Ravel must delve into the double murders of a young girl from a wealthy family and a man blackmailing her. The story plays out like the card game of patience with Ravel finding one way to sort out the facts of the case and then shuffling them in another way to reach an entirely different conclusion. This is a true puzzle mystery (see also Roberta Gellis's Chains ofFolly below), with the detective reexaming the facts several times until the solution is found. Alleyn (A Far Better Rest) knows her French Revolution, creates a complex brain-teaser of a mystery, and excels in making her characters believable. In short, this book has everything; recommended. The author lives in Hudson, NY. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.