This gripping novel is a murder mystery set during the French Revolution, in the run up to the execution of the former King Louis XVI in January 1793. In the desperate economic situation of the time, the inhabitants of Citizen Bernave's house, including his extended family, servants, and others, are shocked one night when a band of desperate citizens invade the house, wrongly believing they are hoarding food. Bernave confronts them, but when the confusion is over, he lies dead, stabbed in the back (i.e. by one of his household, not by the intruders). Needless to say, there is a complex set of motives, arising both from the turbulent politics of the time, with double dealing between the rival political factions, and from the past personal actions of the characters. This story has the reader guessing as to the exact motives of Bernave and several of the others right up until a dramatic set of revelations in the final chapter.

The central political thread running throughout the novel centres around moderate revolutionaries who think that the execution of the king, whatever his personal faults and the undoubted evils and injustices of the Ancien Régime, is an act of barbarism which will bring all the surrounding countries invading and tearing France apart, as was indeed the case. The novel has interesting and thoughtful things to say about how revolutions in seeking to destroy all that went before them, the evil and the good, so often end up not replacing them with values and institutions that are better than their abolished predecessors. As one of the non-political characters says, "All I want is safe streets and food in the shops...... I don’t care whether it’s the King, or Marat or the Commune, or who it is. And I think most of the women in France feel the same. What’s a revolution for if we’re all still cold and hungry, and scared stiff of our neighbours in case they take a dislike to us and make a false report to some Section Leader, and the next thing you know, we’re charged with something?". The fanaticism of the Jacobins is well illustrated by an oration by the cold Louis Saint Just: "The vessel of the revolution can arrive in port only on a sea reddened with torrents of blood! .....We must not only punish traitors, but all people who are not enthusiastic. There are only two kinds of citizen, the good and the bad. The republic owes the good its protections. To the bad it owes only death!". As Célie Laurent observes of the humourlessness of the radicals, "Was it really necessary to be humourless in order to be good? Could one not possibly bring about social change for the better, and still keep the ability to see the absurd, and to laugh at it?". A really gripping novel, though I am puzzled by its banal and seemingly meaningless title, what is that all about?. ( )

/ Save to Louis XVI (Spanish Edition) Una apasionante carrera contra reloj: cuatro días para salvar el rey en tumulto revolucionario

Fiction, Historical fiction, French revolution, Mystery, January 1793, a small group of Royalists plot to free Louis XVI just been sentenced to death, First published by Headline Book Publishing, 2000, 406 pp., First Italian edition under the title: "L'ombra della ghigliottina", Milano, Mondadori, 2002 ( )

A murder mystery and half-hearted twist of history set during the French Revolution. Suspenseful, but the conclusion is a rather weak soap-opera ramble. The descriptions of Paris streets and living conditions are evocative, and the infodumps kept to a minimum. Celie and the other characters carry the story, though not very vivid in their own right, and the political stance of the author is fairly balanced - humanity is paramount, not monarchy or the republic. ( )