Customer Reviews

Witness on the Quay

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Overall a delightful book to read. Gini Anding very obviously loves Paris and successfully communicates her enthusiasm for the city of light on nearly every page.
The plot is excellent and the characters are vivid, the story flows with ease.
I did find the ending a little abrupt which left me with a feeling of having missed the dessert cart somewhat.
Her descriptions of Ille St. Louis and surrounding areas was very well done and her historical references were illuminating even though I have been walking Paris during constant visits for some 40 years.
Also her characterisations of her "players" was remeniscent of the wonderfully studied style of Georges Simenon.
I look forward to her next Paris based book.

For aficionados of mystery-detective-espionage thrillers, Gini Anding offers both a new take on the genre and -- best of all -- a distillation of the finest features of Who Done It fiction. No mystery writer of today comes close to Anding's intimate knowledge of Paris. And here readers of crime-and-spy conspiracy will appreciate how foreign settings come alive to drive a story's action. Witness on the Quai evokes unique tastes and smells of the Parisian scene through skillfully placed details. The map provided as well as the Cast of Characters are helpful adjuncts, as the plot accelerates through its twists and turns.

Have you ever wanted to go to Paris? If so, this tale will take you there. In reading it, you will experience all the sites of an area known as the Ile St-Louis, at the heart of the great city.

Talented author Gini Anding describes the Ile and its culture so well, you
will see the sights and smell the food cooking and feel as if you are there. Join Amy Page and Jean-Michel Jolivet as they try to unravel a mystery involving two of Amy's oldest friends.

A simple visit to a flea market can prove murderous, the simple purchase of a writing desk can drag you into an international crime ring and bring you face to face with death. You will want to warn Amy not to go out after dark, even with an escord. You will also want to warn Jean-Michel not to ignore her.

A complex set of subplots woven tightly into a story of intrigue and death
as told by a cast of colorful characters you will enjoy meeting will have
you turning the pages to find out what happens next.

I am pleased to recommend this well told story to any reader of mysteries
who enjoys cooking, sight seeing, history, or just visiting old houses. It is all here in splendid detail. You will want to read this authors other books too. Enjoy. I did.

I would usually give any book set in Paris an automatic 3 stars, but not this one - I abandoned it on page 85 simply too bored to continue. Instead of a murder mystery, this book unfolds more like a cheap romance novel. The only purpose of the crime seems to be to have the main characters meet. The helpless American writer and the dashing French inspecter (who, of course, drives a Ferrari). This book has no pace or tension.

Try the Aimee Leduc series by Cara Black for an edgier Paris read.

I thought I had figured out this story early on, but Anding's chameleon-like narrative kept throwing me off the track. The romance plot looks predictable at first but is soon preempted by a richly detailed, authentic travelogue centered on the historic Ile St.-Louis in Paris. Then the murder mystery takes center stage, but just as that seems nearing resolution, unexpected developments in the romance upstage it. This is a compelling, immediate, exciting story with the shifting emphases on each of these responses leaving the reader constantly off-balance--and that element of surprise is the fourth factor in this novel's consistent charm and interest.

Wise, wittty and winsome WITNESS ONTHE QUAY testifies warmly on France and things French. As Amy Page, its food journalist heroine, rebounds as an endangered witness of murder in the heart of Paris, we are more than incidentally grateful for her "homework" in the restaurants, bakeries and stalls of the city as preparation for the cookbook she is writing for her American readers. As much as her culinary investigations you will relish her amorous nvolvement with her partner in detection, the French policeman Jean-Marie Jolivet. Anding does for the City of Paris what Dan Brown does for the Eternal City!
May the Amy/Anding cookbook soon accompany the sequel to WITNESS