num_pages: 368
description: Vidocq. The name strikes terror in the Parisian underworld of 1818. As founder and chief of a newly created plainclothes police force Vidocq has used his mastery of disguise and surveillance to capture some of Frances most notorious and elusive criminals. Now he is hot on the trail of a tantalizing mysterythe fate of the young dauphin Louis-Charles son of Marie-Antoinette and King Louis XVI. Hector Carpentier a medical student lives with his widowed mother in her once-genteel home now a boardinghouse in Pariss Latin Quarter helping the family make ends meet in the politically perilous days of the restoration. Three blocks away a man has been murdered and Hectors name has been found on a scrap of paper in the dead mans pocket: a case for the unparalleled deductive skills of Eugne Franois Vidocq the most feared man in the Paris police. At first suspicious of Hectors role in the murder Vidocq gradually draws him into an exhilaratingand dangeroussearch that leads them to the true story of what happened to the son of the murdered royal family. Officially the Dauphin died a brutal death in Pariss dreaded Templea menacing black tower from which there could have been no escapebut speculation has long persisted that the ten-year-old heir may have been smuggled out of his prison cell. When Hector and Vidocq stumble across a man with no memory of who he is they begin to wonder if he is the Dauphin himself come back from the dead. Their suspicions deepen with the discovery of a diary that reveals Hectors own shocking link to the boy in the towerand leaves him bound and determined to see justice done no matter the cost. In The Black Tower Bayard deftly interweaves political intrigue epic treachery cover-ups and conspiracies into a gripping portrait of family redemptionand brings to life an indelible portrait of the mighty and profane Eugne Franois Vidocq historys first great detective.
language: English
title: The Black Tower
publisher: William Morrow