Paris in July 2022: La jeune fille et la nuit by Guillaume Musso

How wonderful to enter Paris in July again. Thank you to Readerbuzz and Thyme-for-tea who are co-hosting this year's event. Some of you have already posted many interesting things about Paris/France. I start this year's challenge with a review of a book by Guillaume Musso. I might have got it from a common bookcase at my parents place. I have never heard about the author before, but it seems he belongs to one of the most popular authors in France. So much for keeping up with what is going on in other countries. I read it in Swedish which have the same title as in English, The Reunion. In French it is called La jeune fille et la nuit.

"The French Riviera – 25 years ago

An elite prep school frozen in the snow

Three friends linked by a tragic secret

One girl taken by the night

One freezing night, as her campus is paralyzed by a snowstorm, 19-year-old Vinca Rockwell, the most beautiful and glamorous girl at her prep school, runs away with her philosophy teacher, with whom she has been conducting a secret affair.

She will never be seen again.

The French Riviera – present day

Once inseparable, Thomas, Maxime, and Fanny—Vinca’s best friends— have not spoken since graduation. But when they receive a notice from their old school, detailing plans for a new gymnasium and inviting them to come to a class reunion, they know they must go back one more time. Because there is a body buried in the gym’s walls…and they’re the ones who put it there.

What really happened that long-ago winter night? Now nothing stands in the way of the truth."

The book is narrated in first person by Thomas. We know already from the start what happened 25 years ago. At first I wondered what the story would be, when we already know what happened? Well, as often is the case, everything is not what it seems. As Thomas comes back for the school reunion, meeting old friends and having to face old nightmares, the story is slowly unravelled.  

Even if he was involved in the events all these years ago, even he does not know what exactly took place. I really liked Musso's way of building up the story, introducing us to the various characters, which are very well defined. Along the way you try to figure out what really happened that long ago, but the story takes you deeper and deeper and it makes you none the wiser. The thrill is there until the very end.

This novel is just not a thriller it can also read as a book of relationships, between parents and children, between best friends, girlfriends and boyfriends, about growing up and what to do with your life. How do you go on when terrible actions are burdening your mind? And the big question which has eluded Thomas: what really happened to Vinca and Alex? 

The Reunion is an excellent thriller and I am eager to read more by Musso. He is from Antibes and most of the story takes place there. It is very well portrayed, and you are there with the beautiful surroundings, the sea, the tourists and the local people. As Thomas moves around his childhood places, we follow him to his favourite restaurants, bars and other places where old memories, which he has kept hidden for so many years, now coming up to the surface. His complicated relationship with his parents during his childhood and mature life, comes to a revealing end. 

Now I am reading the next book for July, and it takes place in Paris; The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley.