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The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley is a short and classic whodunit mystery book. The main character, Jess, is leaving London after getting in some trouble and is going to stay with her half brother named Ben who lives in Paris. Ben has a much different life than Jess, both have been through foster care when they were younger but Ben’s family gave him a much better life than Jess’s family. Ben doesn’t sound all that thrilled for Jess to come to live with him, but reluctantly agrees and says that he will be ready when she comes over. When Jess arrives at Ben’s apartment, he isn’t answering his door and when Jess was finally able to get into his apartment, Ben was not found in the apartment. Jess is starting to get worried about where Ben could have gone, and why he would have disappeared when he knew that she was coming. Jess starts to ask all of his neighbors where Ben could have gone and when was the last time that they saw Ben, and all of them start to act weird. All of Ben’s neighbors have something to hide and are very secretive towards Jess. Jess then goes into full on detective mode and is trying to figure out what could have happened to Ben right before she came to his apartment. Jess tries to work with Nick, the guy who helped Ben get the apartment, and is one of Ben’s best friends, but Nick seems to be hiding something from Jess. Jess also starts working with Ben’s publisher and trying to figure out what happened to Ben, but does his publisher have an alternative motive? Will Jess be able to find out where Ben went, or is there something more to Ben’s disappearance? 

     I would give this book an 8/10. It was a quick read, only about 350 pages long. The middle of the book felt a little repetitive of Jess questioning the other characters that live in the apartment building with her. The book also had different points of views that would overlap with other chapters so you could get the whole story of what was happening from different perspectives which I really enjoyed. Sometimes the points of view would get confusing because there would be flashbacks in between different points of views that would sometimes be difficult to keep track of. There was a really good plot twist at the very end of the book that I did not see coming, and made the book worth it. I wish that the middle of the book was shortened, and the ending of how everything happened was longer to get the full circle story. The extended ending would have given everyone’s point of view of what went down, and what happened because of it. I also wish that there was an epilogue of a couple months later to see what would have happened after everything went down, and where each character ended up. I liked the relationships that Jess made though out the book, and how those relationships were tested and stretched. If you love a good and quick mystery with a suspenseful ending, this is the book for you!

Check out The Paris Apartment from the Newport Beach Public Library!