THE PARIS LABYRINTH

In 1889 Paris, Vincent Cavel and his friends are the brilliant creators of secret rooms and passageways, highly sought after by the powerful and wealthy. Now, their own lives may be under siege.

It all begins when Vincent accepts a curious job from a Mr. Minguier, who wants him not to build a secret room but to break into one hidden in his new home. And then a curious invitation arrives from the mysterious Charles Adinson. Like Minguier, Charles does not ask Vincent to design a secret hideaway for his treasures. Instead, he asks him to join a secret fraternity intent upon safeguarding the treasures of history from the newfangled technologies of the modern era. Meanwhile, a beautiful woman has literally fallen into the team’s hidden workshop. Unsure whom to trust, Vincent and his team quickly become caught up in a dangerous adventure riddled with assassination attempts and impossible puzzles to solve. Poisoners, knife-wielding hooligans, menacing stalkers, and eerie magical twins called the Mage—all plunge the team into the sewers and labyrinthine tunnel systems underneath the streets of Paris. The engineering feats found there astound even Vincent’s imagination. Deftly constructing an intricate world, Legardinier is at his best when depicting the secret architecture, magical inventions, and sheer genius of Vincent’s designs. These dazzle set alongside the magic of the World’s Fair, with its exhibits of glassworks, clockworks, machinery, and even the Eiffel Tower. Indeed, once Legardinier delves into the most hidden of subterranean vaults, the treasures rival those of Scheherazade’s tales.

An exciting adventure story ripe for cinematic treatment.