Dark Paris

Paris - the glamorous City of Light holds many dark secrets...

Discover Dark Paris in our collection of short stories written by award-winning and international bestselling authors!

As we traverse the City of Light, and delve below the surface, into its dark heart, follow spine-tingling tales of murder, ghostly appearances, baffling mysteries, and horrifying Black Masses!

It's Hallowe'en, and a young woman is exploring the cemeteries of Paris. She is sceptical about a story she's told about Jim Morrison's ghost appearing in a selfie in Père Lachaise a few years earlier, but then her own experience when she photographs an unusual Hallowe'en display in a branch of Monoprix in Pigalle leaves her wondering if it's true that the camera never lies.

In Montmartre, we stumble across a woman with a terrifying history. From a young age, Apple Rose was a rarity: an infamous serial killer known only as Bloody Rose. For the past seven years the world believed her to be dead. They were wrong.

Then we head back in time, to Paris in the 1980s. Hoskins, a rising star at the British Embassy, finds himself struggling to balance the responsibilities of his job with the advances of a colleague. As the pressure mounts, he realises events from his past now threaten his future. Can we ever truly escape our own history?

As we shift to 2019, we join a ghostly gathering. During a lively discussion about Les Misérables between the long-departed author, Victor Hugo, two former - now headless - queens of France, and a lovestruck couple finally reunited in death, tragedy strikes again in the heart of Paris...

Delve into the 17th century and discover a secret network of poisoners and plotters. When mere love potions cease to elicit the result she desires, the Marquise de Montespan resorts to desperate methods to become the favourite mistress of King Louis XIV. She attends a Black Mass organised by Catherine de Monvoisin. But what kind of sacrifice - one fit for a king - has the infamous La Voisin in mind?

Then we meet Sharon, wary of returning to France after twice having had luggage stolen in French trains, who can't resist an offer from her friend, Mandy, of a free holiday in Paris. But where did Mandy get the money for a suite in the Ritz, and who is the young man with a stain on his shoe who keeps following her? The mystery deepens, leading to a showdown and then a revelation, and even that is not quite the end.

In the following tale we travel between Paris and Glasgow, Scotland, between the present and 1990. Cameron McLeod has been writing crime novels for thirty-five years. Now, he shares the story of a real-life murder he witnessed in Montmartre, but nothing is ever as it seems.

The trip of a lifetime... Joanie's long-awaited vacation to Paris with all its charms takes an unexpected turn. Facing down some darker edges in the City of Light pulls at the carefully stitched-together pieces of herself. Will those pieces become undone by time spent in the Catacombs?

In Le Corbeau Blanc, we uncover a bitter story of revenge and retribution.

And lastly, we meet Chloe, a teenager with mental health issues, who is on a French exchange. Her dad blames her for the death of her mother, and takes revenge by killing the boy she loves, and framing her. Completely without hope, Chloe submits, like Winston Smith in 1984.

All proceeds we receive for Dark Paris go to two worthy charities: Les Restos du Coeur and Fondation Brigitte Bardot.