Little Demon in the City of Light by Steven Levingston

Category: 50 Books

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The full title of this historical true crime book is Little Demon in the City of Light: A True Story of Murder and Mesmerism in Belle Époque Paris. It’s a mouthful, but just go with it.

I know it’s easy to just compare books and authors and I told myself to stop doing that very thing, but reading this book I could not help but think of Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City. They’re both historical true crime, and both use the time period to really bring the crimes to life.

You can tell Steven Levingston has done meticulous research for this book. The scope is really ambitious but he manages to keep it neat and tidy and all with a narrative that draws you in and keeps you turning the page.  It’s the story about two murderers, Gabrielle Bompard and Michel Eyraud, who murder the well-to-do Toussaint-Augustin Gouffé. Bompard and Eyraud start out as lovers, but as they make their journey across the world in search of fortune they split, giving Gabrielle the excuse that Eyraud hypnotized her to get her to commit murder.

During this time hypnotism is a big deal and there are two schools of thought about it. I’m talking two official schools in France. The book offers a pretty great overview of what was going in science and psychology at this time. In fact, this could almost be two books, one on the history of hypnotism/psychology in France and one about the crime, but the way the two parts weave together really make a solid book.

The detectives that worked the case were also impressive, even though the press at the time had no qualms about slamming them as incompetent. I really loved the parts about the Belle Époque because the Parisian fascination with murder and the grotesque was sort of shocking to me. The way the public really loved the guillotine and would travel so far and wait so long to see someone put to death, I mean, they LOVED it. And the museums would set up these gruesome crime scenes for people to tour. Their obsession with all things morbid really added to the drama of the investigation.

If you love true crime, give this book a go. If you love Erik Larson’s books (once again, sorry for the comparison, but seriously, you could do worse than be compared to a National Book Award nominee) for the way they make history come alive, then definitely give this one a go.

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