Central Park by Guillaume Musso

Author: Guillaume Musso

Title: Central Park 

Publisher: Back Bay Books

Published: 2014

Pages: 336

Genre: Mystery 

      Alice, a fierce and respected Parisian cop, wakes up on a Central Park bench with no memory of the night before, handcuffed to a complete stranger--a musician named Gabriel. Disoriented, dazed, and with someone else's blood on her shirt, Alice works furiously to reconnect the dots. She remembers clubbing with her friends the night before on the Champs-Élysées. Gabriel claims he was playing a gig in Dublin. Was she drugged? Kidnapped? Why is the gun in her jacket pocket missing a bullet? And whose blood is on her clothes? Over the next twenty-four hours, Alice and Gabriel race across New York in search of answers, stumbling upon a startling set of clues that point to a terrible adversary from the past. Alice must finally confront her memories of hunting the serial killer who took everything from her--a man she thought was dead, until now.

     In recent years I have found myself coming back to Musso more and more. When I first started reading this author whilst he was huge in mainland Europe there were very few of his book that were actually translated into English. Luckily for me with the translation of the Reunion becoming such a massive success there now seems to be a breaking of the flood gates which I can only feel is a good thing for me. Which unsurprisingly is how I came to be in possession of a copy of Central Park. A book, who's blurb seemed to tick all the right boxes for me. suspense and intrigue would seem to be abound and for any fan of thrillers you could almost feel the anticipation at your finger tips. 

    Sometimes it feels easy to tell an authors nationality by their style of writing. When it comes to Musso even in this diabolical race against time he brings a certain poetry and flow to his writing. It for me is quintessentially French through and through. Its ebbs and flows always feeling like we are swept up in this story enjoying the ride as we go. But whilst I could no doubt talking about this for some time yet it would become a matter of expelling air for the sake of it and more importantly what I should be telling you about is the book at hand. Much Like the Reunion Musso has created and beautifully delicate yet complex set of mystery's for us to untangle. Because with this author we never really get just the one. But a spiders web for us to pluck at its strings and see where we are to be lead this time. And whilst it did not always go where I was expecting it to  I can safely say I did enjoy the ride. 

     This time around Musso has tread us to just two leads to try and get to grips with. Alice our French half of the equation. She is for the most part the more pragmatic of the two. A no nonsense Parisian detective who as you can imagine has seen her fair share of the worst humanity has to offer. She it would seem is the driving force in this duo. Every ready to plumb the depths of this mystery in the hopes of not only putting this jigsaw back together but also her own in an attempt to heal a rift that runs to her very core. Gabriel on the other hand is adapted at playing the ever shifting mysterious stranger. This being a French author he gets to play to some extent with the notion of how we see Americans. Big and brooding there is a whiff of the Clint Eastwood's about him. Whilst we are trying to figure our the much bigger mystery's of this book, we to must pull apart this man in the hopes of pinning down just what exactly is going on. Does he in fact have a heart in there wanting to help Alice or is he in fact the pied piper leading her on a merry dance further and further away from the truth.

     For me Musso's books all ways feel like they could not have been written by anyone else. I am always reminded when I finish one of this books just why he is one of the most read authors in France. Now if you are expecting some bench mark for high literature then you can forget Musso. What he gives his readers is escapism. A chance to float away for a few hours and have an enjoyable reading experience. And whilst this one does go to place I was not expecting it to and gave me a far more heart-breaking and emotional roller coaster than others of his books I have read. That is exactly what he delivers on. I look forward to m next time reading this author.