Paris in July: Three books by Antoine Laurain

Thanks to Paris in July, over the last couple of years I have been making my way through the backlist of popular French author Antoine Laurain.  Last year, I shared a review of what is still my favourite, An Astronomer in Love, as well as mini reviews of three other books. Today, I am back with another three mini reviews of the books that I have read since last years Paris in July event.

I was trying to get French Windows read for last years event, but I ran out of time. In this book, Nathalie is a photographer who is having therapy as she can no longer do her job after she accidentally photographed a murder. Her doctor, Doctor Faber, sets her the task of writing stories about the people who live in the building opposite her. Soon he is having to wonder whether she is making up the stories, or if they might be true. And if they are true, how is she finding everything out. One of the things that I notice regularly in these books is the smoking, and here Doctor Faber is a self proclaimed gifted smoker and this is central to the plot. This seems pretty French to me!

The President's Hat is probably my second favourite story from this author. One night accountant Daniel Mercier is having dinner in a Parisienne restaurant when the President comes in to dine. At the end of the night, Mercier realises that the president has left his hat behind. Daniel takes it home and realises that when he wears it he feels empowered to behave differently. However, it isn't long before Daniel loses the hat himself and other people get to feel the power of the hat!  What follows is almost caper-ish as various parties try to locate and obtain the hat. It's a lot of fun.

My most recent read was French Rhapsody which was published in 2016. This was a little deceptive as it started out as though it was going to be very nostalgic about music and about the different lives that people can lead when they start from a similar point in time. It did, however, end up being quite political, talking about right wing politicians in French politics. Structurally, it is very interesting, and the starting premise for the book is very clever. A doctor named Alain receives a letter through the post that should have been delivered 30 years previously. At the time, he was a member of a cold wave rock band and they had submitted a demo tape in the hope that they would get picked up by a record company. When they didn't get any interest, the band all went their separate ways. Now Alain is trying to contact them all again. Whilst we get perspectives from the band members, there are also additional perspectives from other characters as well. It does have some trademark Laurain elements in here from unusual meetings and unseen connections to silly humour. 

I love that whilst there are some trademarks in his writing, each of the books is very different.  

I think I still have The Portrait and Smoking Kills waiting for me on my Kindle, and then hopefully there will be an English translation of his latest book which is called La Dictee in French (The Dictator) coming soon as well.

A shout out to the translators for these books. French Windows was translated by Louise Rogers La Laurie. She also worked on the translation of The President's Hat along with Emily Boyce and Jane Aitken. These last two also translated French Rhapsody.

French Rhapsody was one of my Twenty Books of Winter and also counts for the Books in Translation Challenge