The Twelve Detectives are a famous group of crime solving individuals - spread throughout the world. In the 1880's their exploits are well known - the magazine The Key to Crime regularly publishes the story of their investigations. Sigmundo Salvatrio works in his father's shoe repair shop, but he doesn't dream of being a cobbler - his dream is to join the ranks of the acolytes of the world famous investigators. It seems a pipe dream as Renato Craig, the only one of the detectives who lives in Buenos Aires has always opposed recruitment of his own acolyte. Sigmundo is therefore astounded when Craig advertises for a group of young people to become his students - to learn all he knows about investigation techniques. He promptly applies and becomes one of Craig's enthusiastic students.

Eventually Sigmundo finds himself at the 1889 Paris World Fair a year later, as Craig's representative. Events since the formation of the school have meant that Craig is unable to attend one of the few gatherings of the entire group of Twelve Detectives. But the pleasure (and trepidation) that Sigmundo feels at having this honour bestowed on him is soon lessened when another of the great Detectives - Louis Dabon - is found at the base of the Eiffel Tower. Craig pairs up with the other Paris based member of the Twelve, the Polish Viktor Arzaky, to search for the truth.

THE PARIS ENIGMA is translated from its original Spanish, set in the late 1880's. This combination could provide some explanation for the stylings used, as well as the general pace of the entire story, but it doesn't quite cover why the book seems to wander around a lot. The blurb does seem to indicate that this should be a story about the group The Twelve Detectives, but it is told totally from Sigmundo's point of view, and thus is mostly him, his reactions to the events surrounding him, and his understanding of the investigation into Dabon's death. Whilst he does collaborate to a certain extent with Arzaky - really all the other members of the Detectives - and their acolytes - are bit players at most.

The book also seems to lack a feeling of place - the setting in 1889 World Fair Paris seems to be glossed over - there is some discussion of the Eiffel Tower, in terms of its location for the murder of Dabon, and there are passing references to hotels and furnishings, but really the book could have taken place in any location. The timeframe is interesting because it does provide an opportunity for the investigation elements to be stripped down to the bare essentials - this is obviously a tale that hails from before modern investigative techniques, communications options and procedures. It is probably that sense of time that is best served by the style of story-telling and language that is used.

THE PARIS ENIGMA is not an unpleasant or difficult book to read - it is quite entertaining in some places. The Twelve Detectives hold the cerebral nature of their technique in high regard. They are fond of story-telling, and throughout the book there are sprinklings of tales of many of their famous cases. There are sprinklings of extraneous little puzzles, there's a bit of romance and intrigue, and then there is the reason for their presence at the World Fair - their own exhibition. But most of this is skimmed over, or seems somewhat "stuck" into the middle of the narrative frequently, it seemed, because of the attractiveness of the small vignette. At one point I felt compelled to do a little online research to try to work out if the book had originally been a series of short stories that had been interconnected with a narrative.

Amusing, but definitely not deep, THE PARIS ENIGMA is probably not the book for people who like a beginning, a middle, an end and a firm sense of purpose. If you're looking for a wander around in an 1880's style labyrinth with very little reason for being, it could very well appeal.

3.5 esta novela me sorprendió bastante. Al principio pensé que no me iba a gustar nada, pero luego cada paso que daba me agrada mas y al final sin duda vale la pena la lectura.

Reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes, and great fun.

A medida que avanzaba en la historia me preguntaba ¿cuantas estrellas podria darle a este libro? Finalmente me incline por las cuatro.
Buena historia e interesantes personajes a mi parecer, me mantuvo en el enigma durante todo el libro salteando entre mis sospechosos y recordando ese viejo gusto de infancia que tenia por Doyle. Sin embargo, en algo fallo. Tuve muchos altibajos a medida que avanzaba, podia engancharme con la lectura y viajar a 1888 asi como suspirar por las mil anecdotaa y vaijes al pasado que terminan por narrar cada personaje; no me quejo de ello ealmente, ya que al ser detectives y mas de uno es logico que cada uno quiera destacar sobre el resto usando sus ejemplos, no obstante no puedo mentir y decir que no deseaba saltearme un par de paginas.
Mas alla de eso no puedo quejarme, un lindo relato con un interesante miterio, con el plus de ver algunos toques argentinos por ahi, ¿que mas podria pedir?

Enjoyable, but hardly gripping even though I made allowances for the period setting. Not exactly the modern type of detective story despite the presence of 12 detectives and a few murders but it got me thinking it's a story that would work better as a movie.

#46 for 2008. In English, of course.

Despite being an easy and smooth read I wasn't really sucked in, but certainly not a bad book

The Twelve Detectives – a society of the world’s top sleuths – are meeting at the 1889 Paris World’s Fair. But before the fair opens, a series of murder require their collective expertise.

De Santis studied literature and worked as a journalist and comic-book writer. This latter endeavor is clearly represented in his debut novel. The plot is thinly drawn, but the characters are as vivid (if two-dimensional) as the best Dick Tracy or Batman villains. All we’re missing are the drawings and a few KABOW!s …

It was mildly entertaining, but he spent way too much time setting up the story. There were too many characters, many of whom had no discernible role. The plot did not flow in a way that built suspense; in fact I lost interest half way through, put it aside and nearly didn’t finish at all.

Really enjoyed this. An outsiders look at detectives, but ones that seem to be clearly fictional detectives. Shame most of his stuff hasn't been translated.

I'll begin by saying that this book was beautifully and imaginatively written---the language is just lovely and so creative. For example:

pg. 134: "Although there were no books in Grialet's house, the house itself was a book. The building, I found out later, had belonged to an editor named Fussel, who had the door and windows built to look like book covers. The spiral staircases crossed through the building like arabesques, unexpected rooms appeared here and there like footnotes, the hallways extended like careless margin notes."

The imagery alone is a good enough reason to read this book.

As for the story, it was predictable---but good. The back cover sensationalizes to make it sound like a riveting, fast-paced thriller when it is, instead, a meandering stream of a "mystery". It's really a combination of lots of little stories that come together in the end for a gentle but satisfying conclusion.

Don't be led on by the marketing attempts at making this out to be all about the World's Fair or the building of the Eiffel Tower. These events are mentioned as the backdrop of the story...but that's about it. There is VERY little history of either event and any time they come up it's mainly in relation to how many days until the Fair, etc.

I don't regret reading this, but it definitely took longer than I expected to finish it as I wasn't really engaged in the story line. It didn't really get super interesting or "mysterious" until the last 40 pages or so.