From Publishers Weekly

Delors follows Mistress of the Revolution with a gripping historical that chronicles the efforts of a young police inspector to capture the men responsible for trying to kill Napoleon Bonaparte. After a botched assassination attempt on Napoleon kills several bystanders, chief inspector Roch Miquel races to find the men responsible. His investigation is hindered by corruption and jealousy among his colleagues in the police force, notably from Fouché, the stridently unsavory minister of police, who, in order to keep Roch under his thumb, imprisons Roch's father under false pretenses and threatens to have him deported. Meanwhile, Roch finds some comfort in his married mistress, Blanche Coudert, who has a very unfortunate secret that will harshly complicate Roch's already precarious situation. It's not a surprise that Delors's sympathies are with her hero, and his adversaries are depicted as satisfyingly despicable. Themes of class conflict, the messy process of change, and impossible love are nicely woven into the tense central plot of this fast-moving chase through the damp, rutted streets of turn-of-the-19th-century Paris. (July)
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From

Similar in plot, style, and setting to Balzac's The Chouans, Delors' uneven second novel (following Mistress of the Revolution, 2008) bogs down under the weight of a mixture of French terms, tangential details, and a large cast of characters, most of whom are referred to by nicknames, titles, proper names, and surnames. Readers who persevere, however, will be struck by the author's evocation of eighteenth-century Paris: the physical descriptions of post-Revolutionary life, the unsavory and treacherous political climate, and the blatant injustice and corruption perpetrated under Napoléon Bonaparte. Chief Inspector Roch Miquel, of the Police Prefecture, disliked by both his colleagues and superiors, nearly ruins himself and his father in the course of his investigations into an explosive attempt on Napoléon's life on the Rue Nicaise (later known as the Machine Infernale). Unfortunately, love-struck Miquel's blundering leaves him in the readers' dust when it comes to solving the puzzle. Stick with this one for the atmosphere, but for a better mix of history and intrigue, try Susanne Alleyn's Aristide Ravel mysteries. --Jen Baker