City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris

Download or read book City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris written by Holly Tucker and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2017-03-21 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An artful reconstruction of seventeenth-century Paris with riveting storytelling." —The New Yorker In the late 1600s, Louis XIV assigns Nicolas de la Reynie to bring order to Paris after the brutal deaths of two magistrates. Reynie, pragmatic and fearless, discovers a network of witches, poisoners, and priests whose reach extends all the way to the king’s court at Versailles. Based on court transcripts and Reynie’s compulsive note-taking, Holly Tucker’s engrossing true-crime narrative makes the characters breathe on the page as she follows the police chief into the dark labyrinths of crime-ridden Paris, the halls of royal palaces, secret courtrooms, and torture chambers.