The Phantom Of Rue Royale, By Jean-François Parot, trans. Howard Curtis

Perhaps the centuries-old enmity between Britain and France is over; certainly, a literary entente cordiale is in place in Jean-François Parot's new novel. Early in The Phantom of Rue Royale, set in 18th-century Paris, the writer exerting a not-so-subtle influence on the text seems English rather than French. There are references to the "best" and "worst" (of Parisians, not times), and someone is knocked down by a dangerously driven carriage and left to bleed on the ground ("an arrogant voice gave the order to push the rabble aside and carry on").

But these signs that we might be in for a reworking of A Tale of Two Cities are misleading, though Parot shares Dickens' taste for an operatically staged set piece. And the one that opens this latest outing for Commissioner Nicolas Le Floch sets a kinetic pace for the narrative that is rigorously maintained.

It is May 1770, and all of Paris is in a frenzy of anticipation. The Dauphin has married Marie Antoinette, and the city authorities have laid on a spectacular fireworks display. As the youthful commissioner observes the excitement, he realises that the preparations are wholly inadequate. The display is mismanaged, and wreaths of smoke and flame engulf the pyrotechnicians' platform. Panic ensues and the rue Royale and Tuileries are plunged into chaos, with people crushed by carriages and crowds. But one body among the dead appears not to be a victim of the disaster, but of a cold-blooded murder.

Nicolas is determined to track down her killer, even though his boss has handed him a more dangerous assignment: to find out who is behind the wedding débâcle. As in earlier books, Parot demonstrates he has few peers at marrying colourful historical narrative with the exigencies of the crime novel. The translation by Howard Curtis does full justice to the detailed prose, and Le Floch is an engaging conduit for the reader through the teeming, phantasmagoric capital that is 18th-century Paris.

A little pruning might have been applied to that besetting sin of historical fiction, characters telling each other things they already know, and a supernatural element may be a genre-shift too far for some. But such is the momentum of the storytelling, few will worry.