Publication date : 24 April 2025
Language : English
Print length : 368 pages
ISBN-10 : 0241715202
ISBN-13 : 978-0241715208
Book Blurb
Come children, come children from far and near. Come choose your steed, you galloping knights, to enjoy the fun of the carousel . . .
Paris, 1914
Detective Laurent Bisset has reluctantly closed a most puzzling case. Fairgoers have been vanishing while riding a dazzling carousel. The only man who could be responsible is behind bars – but Laurent cannot explain what happened to those still missing.
Chicago, 1920
Maisie Marlowe acquires a beautiful, antique carousel, and sets up the Silver Kingdom amusement park. It is a place of delight and wonder – until a child goes missing on its most famous ride.
When rumours of the Chicago disappearance reach Laurent, he crosses the Atlantic in search of new answers to an old mystery.
Together, can he and Maisie uncover the carousel’s secret before it claims another?
My Review
The Midnight Carousel, just the title of the book drew me in, and then the book blurb had me hooked. This book covers most of the twentieth century, from he early 1900’s to the 1980’s and takes the reader from France to England to America. I lived near a fun fair as a child and the carousel was always my favourite ride, but what about a carousel where you get on but never get off, simply disappear into thin air, a great premise for an immersive book. This book doesn’t fit into any of the established genres, instead it crosses crime, mystery, romance, history and a touch of the supernatural, an excellent cocktail in my opinion.
The plot if this book and fascinating and really got into my head in a good way. The Carousel is made for the Paris Exposition of 1900, a beautiful work of art and for the maker a peice to remember the son he had lost. However, after three people vanish whilst riding the carousel, Detective Laurent Bisset feels he has the murderer but there are no bodies. This is a case that stays with him, so a fews later when he reads of the same thing happening in Chicago he has to go and investigate.
Detective Bisset is a complex figure, his mother commits suicide when he is young and he is brought up by his domineering father for whom he is always a disappointment. As a detective he is dogged in finding the truth, even after the man he arrested got the death penalty. He is able to accept that they got it wrong which plays on his mind.
The other main character is Maisie who also had a troubled childhood. She spent the first years of her life with a foster family who were violent and cruel until her aunt came to claim her. Her aunt’s employer becomes her guardian and she gets a new life in America, a life where her guardian buys her the carousel. Maisie was my favourite character, she overcame her foster years, the fact that she was mixed race and faced prejudice to becoming a succesful business woman in running her own fun fair, the Silver Kingdom. Her relationship with Detective Bisset grew throughout the book, not only in trying to solve the mystery of the carousel but also on a personal level. Both have had troubled childhoods and have trust issues but in each other they find understanding, friendship and romance.
As a debut novel this is really impressive, with its multi layered plot, characters with depth and reality and a prose that grabs you. I just loved the idea of a carousel where riders simply disappears, like Detective Bisset I tried to think of how this could happen; how did they vanish, how could there be no bodies and where was the killer. The other thread was the beautiful blooming romance between Maisis and Detective Bisset, how he tried to find her parents for her, searching Paris at night. As I was reading The Midnight Carousel I felt it had a feel of one of my favourite books, The Night Circus with it’s magic, romance, suspense, and the beautiful prose. The historical aspect was also well written especially in the descriptions of America in the 1920’s, the bootleg alcohol, the jazz clubs, the mix of cultures and the opportunities available.
The Midnight Carousel is a book that has stayed with me since reading it. It left me with a soft fuzzy feel in relation to the characters whom I loved and a feeling of fascination and awe in regards to the plot. Beautifully written and imagined this is an enchanting and magical read and I can’t wait to read what Fiza Saeed McLynn writes next.
