Mute Witness

Anne Cartier #1

by Charles O'Brien

Picture the Scarlet Pimpernell as a woman--dealing with murder before the Terror made heads roll...
It's the eve of the French Revolution. Fiscal crisis and social tensions brew. Anne Cartier, a headstrong young vaudeville actress at Sadler's Wells company in London hears terrible news. Her stepfather, the actor Antoine Dubois has mysteriously died in Paris. The official verdict: he killed his mistress, then himself. Anne enlists the aid of Colonel Paul de Saint-Martin and his adjutant Georges Charpentier of the royal highway patrol. But, in her search for truth, Anne befriends a deaf, illiterate seamstress with a talent for puppetry who gives Anne an entre into the Palais Royale. Her quest further confronts her with an amateur theatrical society of dissolute young noblemen; a tormented female botanist; a sadistic aesthete; a rich, well-connected financier; a professional assassin.
Unravelling the mystery tests Anne's nerve as well as her remarkable acrobatic skills. At a critical juncture in the investigation, she acts the part of an exotic queen in Indian costume at a reception. Priceless Indian jewelry disappears. Its owner, an aged count is murdered. And a venal police inspector threatens to derail Anne's project.
The story rises to a violent climax in a vast limestone caveoutside Paris where the city has begun to bury its dead. Historian O'Brien's debut novel is elegantly written as befits the times and explores borders between countries and between layers of society. Few have chosen to place a crime novel here. O'Brien makes us wonder why.

Genres: Mystery, Historical Fiction, Historical, Fiction, France

560 pages, Paperback

First published May 26, 2001

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

The Columbia University educated historian embarked on his mystery writing career in 1988, six years before he retired from the WIU history department. O'Brien's wife Elvy, an art historian, had moved to Williamstown, VA, after accepting a position with the J. Paul Getty Trust, then at the Clark Art Institute. That began a series of long commutes for O'Brien.

"I wanted to make use of time on board (trains and planes) and in airports. Many of my fellow passengers were reading crime novels. I thought why not exploit my fund of historical settings and write a historical mystery," O'Brien explained. "The idea of 'Mute Witness' blossomed in the air between Albany and Chicago."

When O'Brien retired in 1994 after 22 years of teaching at Western, he began to seriously study the art of writing fiction with colleague Tama Baldwin of the WIU English faculty.

Reviews

[Virginia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is very descriptive. It took a while to get used to it, but once I did I felt right at home in pre-revolution France. This looks to be the first in a series, but the story was tied up nicely enough to just wish Anne lives happily ever after.

[Denise Mullins · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very uneven historic fiction that suffers from poor pacing, very awkward word choice, and ridiculous action scenes. For all its bloat, the ending was oddly abrupt and unfulfilling.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a mystery I found the novel to be less gripping than a Sue Grafton novel, but as a whole, I am impressed by O'Brien's command of the historical context conveyed through his descriptions of his cast of characters, the scenes, the clothing, the food, and the social and political climate of the time just before the French Revolution. O'Brien has a real feel for the period and a great imagination too. The novel is very tastefully written with language that does not overly contemporize the dialog, something historical novels often do, undermining their believability. I especially enjoyed the context of the theater world and the deaf mute Michou's emergence as an artist. It seems to me that had the heroine Anne been presented in the first person with third person omniscient narration for the rest, the novel would have had more spark.

[Brett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastically evocative of what Paris must have been like in the years right before the Revolution. You feel like you're really there, seeing people starting to notice the enormous disparity in the lives of the various groups of French people. Also a fascinating look at the deaf being looked at as "real people" for the first time, & the beginnings of communication by hand signing. The characters are well-written & generally likable. I expect to hear more about the romance between Anne & Paul, & I very much hope future books tell us more about Michou, the deaf artist.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set around 1780 in Paris. I am glad I listened to it on tape because there are a ton of French names and places, duh, and a very complex story of robbery and murder. The book mentions Thomas Jefferson being part of the French 'in crowd'.

[Jeri · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty good read. It had a very interesting background and characters. The pacing was a bit slow, and the ending much too open – it felt like obvious planning for a series, which is fine, but I like each book to feel complete. Overall, however, I enjoyed it.