RHYS DOES PARIS

 RHYS BOWEN: Today I'm celebrating my launch event for my new Royal Spyness mystery, PERIL IN PARIS!  It’s actually a week before the official release date as Poisoned Pen was already full for November 8, but I’m looking forward to an in person event which has hardly happened for three years now.  (It will also be live streamed if you don’t live near Phoenix. 7 pm. Pacific time)

As you can guess from the title Georgie and Darcy go to Paris. The action takes place at a fashion show at Chanel where Georgie gets involved in international espionage. Lots of fun with our favorite recurring characters making their cameo appearances.

This book is a big deal for me as it marks my 50th mystery/historical novel. Fifty novels in twenty five years. That’s two a year. Quite an output. So there will be much  celebration in the house of Bowen/Quin-Harkin.

And co-incidentally, I’ve just returned from Paris. Every time I go there it reminds me what a special sort of place it is. It is a city of beautiful buildings, of parks, of walks along the Seine, but also of enticing back-alleys, little courtyards, tiny shops.  I love the corner cafes where you can sit outside and watch the world go by for the price of a coffee and nobody ever brings you the bill until you ask for it. I love the parks where you can sit on a bench and watch Parisian life (especially if you’ve just bought a baguette with brie and apple and a pastry to follow it). I love that you can buy a pain au chocolate for one Euro!  I love the fresh vegetables and fruit, again so cheap. We bought strawberries that must have been picked the day before. So sweet!

Parisian women are so impossibly elegant and they know how to wear scarves. When I bought a sweater the saleswoman tried to get me to buy the scarf to go with it. She draped it over my shoulder and it looked great. “It’s no good,” I told her. “I’m not French. It would only fall off.”

Some things about Paris amaze me: we stayed in the Marais, full of little shops. On my street there were several shops that sold handmade crafts and jewelry,, one that sold only Japanese antiques, one old prints, and one that just sold ribbon.  How can anyone pay the rent just selling ribbon? Around the corner was a cheese shop with so many varieties the mind boggled and next door a shop that just sold things like  smoked salmon pinwheels and stuffed artichokes. 

Another thing that amazes me about the shops in France is that they are rarely open. They might put up their shutters at 11, then close for lunch from 1-3 and not open on Mondays or saint’s days. How does anyone make a  profit?

This time I was particularly observant not only because Peril in Paris is coming out but because my next stand-alone is set partly in Paris–before, during and after ww2. And mostly in the Marais where we were staying. So I observed everything to make sure I get the details right.  Also took notes on our river cruise: what does it feel like to go through a lock? To watch life on the banks as you drift past? To have swans come to my balcony? Lots of notes taken there too.

There are things about Paris that I don’t really like: too many people still smoke. If you sit outside at a restaurant you can be sure the people at the next table are smoking. There is dog poo on the sidewalks. People do not clean up after themselves. The traffic is insane. And at the moment there seems to be construction everywhere. I took a bus down to the Trocadero because I love the fountains, only to find the fountains are being refurbished and all I was looking at was construction equipment. Also now a strange thing has happened and churches and monuments have been commercialized: they give space on their walls to advertisers. It alarmed me to see a huge advert for a bank across the front of the Madeleine!

My last annoyance in Paris was that nobody wore a mask and everyone was coughing.  I tested myself–negative and went to the pharmacy. That’s another strange thing in France. You do not select your own medications. A dragon of a woman comes out and asks you what is wrong. She questions about all your symptoms. Then she gives you what she thinks you need (usually herbal as they don’t believe in drugs). Everyone in Paris has a cold right now, she said when I told her my symptoms.  Actually not everyone had a cold. One of them had Covid and I caught it.  Back in London I tested positive and spent several days shut in my hotel room. Luckily it was no worse than an annoying cold and I soon recovered but those were days I had planned to meet friends and do my shopping. I had to return home with no pickles or marmite or my favorite chocolates!

Who is a big fan of Paris? What do you like about it? And I hope some of you will join in this evening at the Poisoned Pen, or on their Facebook! See you there.