The Cast of a Hand: Based on a True Story of Love and Murder in Second Empire France

The Cast of a Hand: Based on a True Story of Love and Murder in Second Empire France

Paperback (28 Jan 2020)

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Publisher's Synopsis

At dawn on the outskirts of Paris in 1869, Hortense Kinck lies buried alive and surrounded by five of her children. Violently attacked, tormented and trapped, she sifts through the truths and deceits of her marriage to self-made industrialist, Jean Kinck. Why had he lied?

France, snug in the prosperity of Napoleon III's Second Empire, is shocked by the vicious destruction of the bourgeois Kinck family. Under pressure from his superiors, the Chief of Police, Monsieur Claude, must unravel the baffling connections between the family and a mysterious young man, Jean-Baptiste Troppmann, a cold case, a famous palmist and France's rising tide of dissatisfaction with the Emperor Napoleon III.

The Cast of a Hand is an unforgettable love story and a murder mystery based on one of the most shocking crimes of 19th century Paris. GS Johnston's razor sharp prose interweaves and cross-pollinates the two narratives, both desperately trying to arrive at the truth.

Book information

ISBN: 9780992548414
Publisher: Greg Johnston
Imprint: Greg Johnston
Pub date:
Language: English
Number of pages: 400
Weight: 390g
Height: 198mm
Width: 129mm
Spine width: 21mm