Un bon roman d'aventure dans un setting fantastique / science-fiction très léger.

Des promenades en différents lieux et siècles.

La lecture est agréable, le style est fluide et personnel. ( )

No time to review right now. Will do it sometime tomorrow (I hope) ( )

In this dark fantasy world, the eccentric Count Palladio has re-created various cities at specific points in history (i.e., Venice during the Renaissance) as vast tourist spots. When someone begins wreaking havoc in historic London by murdering as Jack the Ripper did, veteran sorceress Roberta Morgenstern and young police investigator Clement Martineau are called in to solve the case. However, when it seems that La Voisin is also on the prowl in historic Paris, the investigators realize that there’s a bigger problem at hand. If someone is resurrecting famous murderers, Morgenstern and Martineau are determined to find that person. This volume, weighing in at just more than 500 pages, is a bit slow going. It took me until about page 130 to really get interested in the story, despite the appearance that it would be suspenseful and action-packed. The mystery aspect is actually not all that mysterious, and some of the action sequences seemed to drag on longer than necessary. In particular, there is one extended scene in which Morgenstern and Martineau escape a villain by literally jumping into a painting and making their way through the landscape of the painter’s mind. This section went on too long and was just too cheesy in my opinion. Also, I have the feeling that the book’s language suffers from the translation from French to English. There were some obvious translation errors here and there (“preserved” instead of “observed,” “service” instead of “serve,” and so on), and because of this I couldn’t help but wonder how well the overall translation represented the original text. However, one thing I did enjoy in particular was the snappy dialogue between the two investigators. But, overall, I did not find the book entertaining enough to continue on with the series. ( )