The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley | Book Review

“A strange feeling, knowing they can see me but I can’t see them properly.”

Welcome to No. 12 rue des Amants. A beautiful old apartment block, far from the glittering lights of the Eiffel Tower and the bustling banks of the Seine. Where nothing goes unseen, and everyone has a story to unlock.

The watchful concierge
The scorned lover
The prying journalist
The naïve student
The unwanted guest

There was a murder here last night. A mystery lies behind the door of apartment three. Who holds the key?

10. The Paris Apartment

Having read The Guest List, I was looking forward to Lucy Foley’s next and I requested this as soon as it appeared on NetGalley. Though I’d originally planned to read it over a weekend, I ended up reading through the night.

Jess Hadley makes an impromptu trip from Brighton, UK to meet her half-brother, Benjamin Daniels, in Paris. She’s given him little notice of arrival due to her unusual circumstances but is surprised to find him missing from his apartment. He’s also not responding to her calls or messages.

She somehow manages to get into his apartment but can’t seem to find any clues that explain his disappearance. She’s sure something is wrong and starts asking the reluctant neighbours questions in order to find out what that is.

The story is told from multiple points of view. Every resident of the apartment is a narrator and they all refer to Benjamin as that man from apartment three. As the story progresses, they share their interactions with him, making it evident how unreliable they are as narrators, everyone hiding a secret. The question is – how deep does this secret run? And how does the apartment building connect to it?

For the most part, everything appears to be going around in circles, the narrative deflecting suspicion from one to the other. My interest piqued when one bizarre theory is brought out of the darkness and you begin to see everyone in new light. The book also suddenly picks up pace this point forward.

There is a creepy thrill to the story that intensifies as Jess explores the hidden corners of this old building. As unreliable as she herself is among all these suspects, she is determined to get to the bottom of her brother’s disappearance, even if it involves picking at bits and pieces of available information to paint a picture that is whole.

Like the multiple POVs, the different voice actors worked well in giving each one a distinct identity. There is not much to see in Paris as the book is largely set within the apartment building and moves among the many residents. Listening to these different narrators is what brings in the experience of actually being in Paris.

A twisted psychological thriller, this will have you looking over your shoulder for dark secrets shrouded in mystery, expecting them to jump out at you from between the walls any moment now.

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley. Read by Clare Corbett, Daphne Kouma, Julia Winwood, Sope Dirisu, Sofia Zervudachi, and Charlie Anson. Published on 3rd March 2022 by HarperCollins Audio, HarperCollins UK. This ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Harpercollins UK.

Book 10 of 2022.

Aquamarine Flavours Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟.

Available on Amazon*.

About Photo: I’ve been meaning to cut out stencil letters by hand and thought this went well with the premise of this book.

This stencil is hand-cut on 140gsm white cartridge and mounted on black cardstock.

About the Author: Lucy Foley studied English Literature at Durham and UCL universities. She then worked for several years as a fiction editor in the publishing industry – during which time she also wrote her debut, The Book of Lost and Found.

She is the No.1 Sunday Times bestselling author of The Hunting Party and The Guest List, with two and a half million copies sold worldwide. Lucy’s thrillers have also hit the New York Times and the Irish Times bestseller lists, been shortlisted for the Crime & Thriller Book of the Year Award at the British Book Awards, selected as one of The Times and Sunday Times Crime Books of the Year, and The Guest List was a Reese’s Book Club choice. Lucy’s novels have been translated into multiple languages and her journalism has appeared in publications such as Sunday Times Style, Grazia, ES Magazine, Vogue US, Elle, Tatler, Marie Claire and more.

Lucy now writes full-time, and is busy travelling (for research, naturally!) and working on her next novel.

Connect with her on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

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