‘Murder in Paris’ by Christina Koning

Published by Allison & Busby,
20 November 2025.
ISBN: 978-0-74903246-3 (HB)

Paris, in April, 1945, just after the liberation. Blind veteran Frederick Rowlands has been asked there by MI5 agent Iris Barnes, to identify a young woman calling herself Clara Metzner, whose evidence – if she really is who she says – will help track down French collaborators responsible for the death of British agents. Frederick’s first meeting with Clara is inconclusive – then a shocking death occurs. 

This series follows Rowlands through the war. He’s an interesting protagonist, blinded in the trenches of WWI, married with three adult daughters, and now running a hostel and education centre for fellow blinded servicemen. There are also a number of series characters, like Iris Barnes, Celia Swift, his not-quite love interest, and his London police colleague, Alasdair Douglas, who gradually rises up the ranks during the series. The story’s told in the third person, focused on Rowlands, and so we’re told what he heard, what he smelt and what was beneath his feet, making for very vivid writing. 

It’s a good plot, with vivid characters (you can have fun identifying famous artists and writers under different names) and lots of action, particularly in the cemetery meeting and final underground confrontation, but what drew me most into the novel was the vivid evocation of social setting: the description of France in the aftermath of brutal occupation by the German forces, and the behaviour of French mobs towards those they saw as collaborators. An older French friend once told me that the war was never discussed in her village, and this book brings that atmosphere alive. Nazi rule had been terrifyingly brutal, in ways that we in the UK find hard to imagine, not having lived through it, and the reaction of those who’d survived it was also violent. The only thing to do afterwards was to bury it completely,and some incidents in this book show why. 

There’s a feel, in the celebratory ending, that this tenth Blind Detective is winding up the series. Koning’s many fans will hope not; there must be plenty of mysteries to be solved in the chaos of post-war London.
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Reviewer: Marsali Taylor 

Christina Koning is an award-winning novelist, journalist and academic. She was born in Kuala Belait, Borneo, and spent her early childhood in Venezuela and Jamaica. After coming to England, she was educated at the University of Cambridge, Newcastle College of Art, and the University of Edinburgh, eventually settling in south east London. As an academic, she has taught Creative Writing at the University of Oxford and University of London, and was the 2014-15 Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Newnham College, University of Cambridge. She has taught at Cambridge University's Institute of Continuing Education at Madingley Hall and was Editor of Collected, the Royal Literary Fund's magazine. Christina Koning has two grown-up children and lives in Cambridge. 

Marsali Taylor grew up near Edinburgh, and came to Shetland as a newly-qualified teacher. She is currently a part-time teacher on Shetland's scenic west side, living with her husband and two Shetland ponies. Marsali is a qualified STGA tourist-guide who is fascinated by history, and has published plays in Shetland's distinctive dialect, as well as a history of women's suffrage in Shetland. She's also a keen sailor who enjoys exploring in her own 8m yacht, and an active member of her local drama group.  Marsali also does a regular monthly column for the Mystery People e-zine. 

Click on the title to read a review of her recent book
An Imposter in Shetland 
www.marsalitaylor.co.uk