Wealthy and privileged, Alex has an easy path to success in the Parisian elite. But he and his domineering father have never seen eye to eye. Desperate to escape the increasingly suffocating atmosphere of their apartment, Alex seeks freedom on the streets of Paris where his new-found friend Sami teaches him how to survive. But everything has a price - and one night of rebellion changes their lives forever.
A simple plan to steal money takes a sinister turn when Alex's father is found dead. Despite protesting their innocence, both boys are imprisoned for murder. Seven years later Alex is released from prison with a single purpose: to discover who really killed his father. Yet as he searches for answers and atones for the sins of his past, Alex uncovers a disturbing truth with far-reaching consequences.
In the heart of Paris, against a backdrop of corruption, fake news and civil unrest, The Messenger is a mind-racing new thriller that follows one son's journey to find redemption and expose the truth.
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Set in Paris, Megan Davis’s THE MESSENGER is the story of a dysfunctional family, of Alex Giraud, an angsty teenager, born in France raised in USA, and struggling to fit in Paris to which he, and his father Eddy, have recently returned. Increasingly estranged from his father, bullied by his peers at school, Alex escapes to the streets of Paris where he meets Sami, a small time dealer, a survivor, who introduces him to drugs and the small-time criminals who traffic them. Alex sees a way to use the supply of recreational narcotics to buy his way into the circle of those whose approval he craves, but actually hates, and together he and Sami hatch a plan to rob Eddy, Alex’s father, a plan that ends in tragedy.
The novel actually begins with Eddy’s death on Christmas Eve. Sami flees the apartment telling the hiding Alex not to go in, that, “He’ll be all right. He was still speaking.” Running to he father, Alex finds Eddy dying from stab wounds. And, seven years later, Alex is released from prison, having served a lighter sentence than the 25 years given to the older Sami, determined to find out who really murdered Eddy Giraud, and why.
THE MESSENGER is engrossing, tightly plotted and peopled by realistic, characters most of whom are simultaneously fascinating and unlikeable. It is slow-paced but never boring and, as the author alternates between NOW and THEN, we learn a lot about Alex, his relationship with his father, and the events that led to Eddy’s death and Alex’s incarceration; we see the older Alex’s obsessive drive to find his father’s real murderer and clear his and Sami’s names. Megan Davis reveals just enough information so that both timelines build in a deliberate, measured way until, about two thirds of the way in, the pace explodes, the stakes get much higher, and we career to the shocking conclusion.
It is difficult to believe that THE MESSENGER is Megan Davis’s debut novel, such is the ease with which she handles the plot. The whodunnit elements are satisfying, the atmospheric setting, the seedy Parisian underbelly, thoroughly convincing, and the suspicion of a deeper conspiracy seeded just enough to build the oppressive, claustrophobic atmosphere. It feels ‘real’ and I was completely won over.
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About the author
Megan Davis was born in Australia and grew up in mining towns across the world. She has worked in the film industry and her credits include Atonement, In Bruges, Pride and Prejudice and the Bourne films. Megan is also a lawyer and is currently an associate at Spotlight on Corruption. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. Her debut The Messenger won the Bridport Prize for a First Novel in 2018, judged by Kamila Shamsie, as well as the Lucy Cavendish Prize for unpublished writers in 2021. She has lived in many places, including France for a number of years, but now lives in London.
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