TL Bartusch Indie Author of the Roth series

The Louvre in 1615 I know I go on about it, but I do do a lot of research when I write a new novel. Over the last six months I've been researching the Louvre and thought I'd share a few things I've learnt with you. The Louvre Palace dates from medieval times and was originally a fortress. It was the main residence of Louis XIV until he moved his court and the seat of government to Versailles in 1682. In the late 16th and  early 17th centuries, Henry IV of France carried out major improvements, removing remnants of the medieval fortress, increasing the area of the Cour Carree and completing a link between the Tuileries Palace and the Louvre. Cour Carree today Napoleon used the Tuileries Palace as his home but it was  burnt down during unrest in May 1871. The administrative and conservation areas of the Louvre Museum were moved to new space under the Tuileries gardens as part of I.M. Pei's grand design for the entrance pyramid. Cross section of the ne...

It's summer in Paris and time for some sun. Many Parisiens desert the city for the Riviera or Atlantic coast. Certainly that's the preoccupation of the Curator in Hubris . You don't think of Paris as a place for swimmers - those prickly, impatient exemplars of fashion donning their lycra trunks for a lazy dip just doesn't seem to fit and yet this summer a new swimming place on the canal at La Villette is having to turn away eager bathers. Temporary pontoons have been set up over the water and lifeguards are in place. Paris authorities are now confident the water at La Villette is clean enough to swim in and there are plans to open spots on the Seine to swimmers. Paris Plages Festival 2009 It's all part of an annual summer festival, Paris Plages (beaches) when Parisiens take their deck chairs and umbrellas down to the embankment beside the Seine and sunbathe. The city also trucks in some sand and creates narrow temporary beaches. Here in th...

Some examples of the fine art you'll encounter in the Roth series. In Hubris, #3, set in the curatorial spaces of the Louvre. Drouais, Family Portrait, 1756     Mona Lisa, the Louvre Mona Lisa, 16th century copy, Prado Not fine art but interesting. The Louvre showing I.M. Pei pyramid and  curatorial spaces  under the Tuileries Georges de la Tour, Repentant Magdalene Georges de la Tour, the Nativity 1644 From #2 Emperor in all but name Piranesi original, Fantasy of a Palace -  numerous Piranesi forgeries by Eric Hebborn In the Emperor you'll also encounter Cezanne and Rothko. Roth also deals with forgeries of valuable philatelic specimens. The Magenta, value $9.5m For sale at your favourite eBook retailer or buy direct at Smashwords.com https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/TLBartusch

When I started thinking about writing the Roth series I knew I'd have a lot of work to do. You can't take on writing a mystery/thriller series without committing to making it as authentic as possible. Forget the Paris setting, that was the least of it - it was the everything else that took the time.  Three years later I have to admit I had no idea of the volume and type of research I'd have to do before I could get down to writing the books. I've researched French chateaux, boar hunting in France, refugees, the differences between French and English tailoring, cacao production in West Africa and malaria research, among other things. It goes on and on. To kick off there were the nuts and bolts of Interpol and French law enforcement which wasn't so bad.  Then making Victor Roth an expert in forgery and counterfeiting taught me the world is awash with fakes and counterfeit goods. In some countries legitimate factories run twenty four hours a day, producing ...

Lapin Agile Montmartre, the Mount of Martyrs, is the 18th arrondissement of Paris and a place of extremes. Dominating the highest point in the city is the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Sacre Coeur , an all white 19th century creation in travertine which overshadows the church of Saint-Pierre de Montmartre, a 12th century Romanesque gem . Hugging the slopes of the hill are streets like Boulevarde de Clichy where sex shops and associated entertainments are wall to wall. In between are the places where people live. Victor Roth may be the fictional hero of a series of novels but he had to live somewhere and I chose a small street in Montmartre for his home. Rue des Saulles, Street of the Willows, is a steep cobbled dead end off the busy Rue Caulaincourt on the unfashionable side of Montmartre. Rue des Saulles ends in a set of steps that take many a tourist up to Rue St Vincent and the winding streets that hide houses behind ivy clad walls. Rue des Saulles is also a place of ...

When you read the books in the ROTH series you quickly realise you're in a bit of a travelogue. The stories take you around Paris from Roth's home in Montmartre to his office in the Ministry of the Interior in the 8th arr. and round Paris as he tracks down forgers and counterfeiters. The Cher at Méry-sur-Cher Another aspect of Roth's life is his friendship with Charles Laval, a rich businessman who shares Roth's love of philately and has been a fixture in Roth's life since he was a boy. Early in the first book Roth visits Laval at his house in Rue de Lille and later Laval's chateau on the River Cher in the Loire Valley. The Loire is known for its many chateaux which populate the land surrounding the river and its many tributaries such as the Indre, Vienne, Brenne and Indrois rivers. One of the most significant tributaries of the Loire is the River Cher which joins the Loire at Villandry, home of the famous kitchen garden. I chose the Cher as the locat...

 Ministry of the Interior The ROTH series is set in Paris and its principal characters are French. They work in French law enforcement agencies — the French National Central Bureau of Interpol, the Judicial Police  ( the Direction Centrale de la Police Judiciaire) , and the French Secret Service, the DGSI - General Directorate for Internal Security, which has a similar role within France to Britain's MI5. DGSI is located in a modern charmless building out in the north-western suburbs of Paris at 84 Rue de Villiers, Levallois-Perret. All of these agencies operate very differently to their U.S., Australian or British counterparts. French criminal procedure is also very different and fascinating, to me at least, perhaps because I trained and practised as a lawyer. A short explanation of the agencies that play a role in the novels may be helpful. Interpol is an international police organisation that operates out of a state of the art facility in Lyon, in eastern...

I have to admit that philately, or stamp collecting, is not my thing so it came as a surprise to me when I became fascinated by the exploits of Jean de Sperati, an Italian master forger of philatelic specimens. Sperati was born in 1884 into a family of stamp dealers and printers in Pistola, Italy. His real name was Giovanni Desperati. I love 'desperati', it conjures up all kinds of character possibilities for a novelist. He separated it to de Sperati, probably at the time he went to live in Aix-en-Provence in France. The French version doesn't have the same allure. Little Giovanni learnt his trade in the family business which was then operating in Pisa. Then he started producing fake stamps. In this context fakes are genuine specimens altered to increase their value which is done by changing the colour, design or denomination so the forger's creation looks like, and hopefully passes as, a more valuable stamp. When you sell them as the real article they're forge...

Hubris is a noun, defined as isolence or arrogance such as invites disaster. It's also the title of the third book I've published in the Roth thriller series. Herbert James Draper, Lament for Icarus People generally take hubris to mean 'don't tempt the Gods' by bragging or making them jealous. Greek mythology is riddled with cautionary tales of punishment of pushy individuals who offended the Gods. Icarus is an example. Icarus' father, Daedalus, gave him wings to escape Minos but the silly boy soared too high and, as the wings were made of  wax, they melted when he flew too close to the sun. Icarus learnt about hubris the hard way.   The setting for the new ROTH is the world of fine art curatorship in the Louvre Museum where curators and conservators face conflicting needs and difficult decisions every day - to display the Louvre's ageing and fragile treasures for the public to see while preserving them for future generations. None of the ch...