Jason

Paris at dusk provides the opening scene for this romance of friendship, attraction and a missing person. Ste. Marie and his English friend Hartley ride through streets still damp from a shower, then continue on foot toward a dinner party. Their teasing conversation turns to Helen Benham, whose beauty has already made a strong impression on Hartley. Ste. Marie's unusual gloom gives the evening an uneasy edge beneath its pleasant sights and scents.

Justus Miles Forman sets this social world beside a dangerous mystery. In a later scene, Captain Stewart and O'Hara discuss Ste. Marie's injury and agree that he must be kept prisoner at La Lierre. Their anxious calculations about his friends show how much depends on who knows his whereabouts. The novel offers readers richly observed Paris streets, lively exchanges between companions and suspense built around concealed information, bringing the pleasures of a love story into contact with the risks of investigation.