Never Give Up

By Victoria Zackheim

My father lectured his children on the importance of completing a task. Love it or hate it, nothing in life should be left unfinished. Thinking of this now, at the age of eighty, I smile. The journey that ended with the publication of my first mystery, The Curtain Falls in Paris, began in 1996. (Yes, 1996, that’s no typo!)

After having lived in Paris for nearly five years, I moved back to the States, settling in Silicon Valley. (I was supposed to stay there for three months to study the language, but… well, it was Paris.)  Before Paris, I was earning my living as a freelance writer for high-tech companies, and I was able to fall back into that work within weeks. And why not? I was brilliant at writing with knowledge and authority about new technologies. The fact that I understood absolutely nothing never got in my way.  

I awoke one morning, turned on the PC, and got to work. I think it was a user manual for a new Hewlett Packard integrated software system. It was a total mystery to me, but I wrote as if my financial life depended on it… which it did. As I conjured reader-friendly text, a thought passed through my head. While sleeping, had I dreamed something? A story? I went back to the HP work, but the thought persisted. Had I awakened myself in the middle of the night, turned on the PC and typed the story? I looked at the desktop and there it was, a Word file called mystery…. three single-spaced pages describing a murder that takes place in a Paris theater.  

So, here’s where my father’s advice comes in. Over the next twenty-eight years, I wrote the story, revised, tore it apart, and revised it again… and again. During that time, I created seven anthologies. My agent loved all of them, but not my Paris mystery. She criticized with kindness, but told me with sadness that she couldn’t send it out. She was right. It was disjointed; there was no continuity. I kept editing. Finally, when it was clear she couldn’t get behind the novel, I sought another agent.

It was my great fortune that agent Darlene Chan, from the Linda Chester Literary Agency, loved the story. We both knew something was amiss, but couldn’t decide exactly what. With great hope, it went out to editors. Many of the rejections came with praise about the writing, the story, the characters, and several of these editors noted that something was missing… but they weren’t sure what.  

When it was sent to Level Best Books, everything changed. Shawn Reilly Simmons came back with an offer. And not only an offer, but an editing suggestion. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Chapter Four, describing the murder, should be Chapter One. Who couldn’t see that? Well, for starters, me!

And so my relationship with Shawn and Level Best Books began. On May 13, nearly thirty years after that dream, The Curtain Falls in Paris was published.

Does the final product resemble the 1996 dream? I’d say as much as 90% of the original story is in this novel. Same characters, a few name changes, a few country villages added, but the plot is the same.

So, what’s the story?

San Francisco-based journalist Aria Nevins is on the cusp of international prominence with her series on drug abuse. When she suffers a lapse in judgment and short-cuts the fact-check process, an innocent woman dies. She’s dismissed from the paper, removed from Pulitzer consideration, and faces a civil suit from the victim's family. Georges de Charbonnet, a major player with the Paris police, needs to stop the bleeding after weeks of bad press around the death of a young man in custody. He hires Aria to follow a homicide team, led by Noah Roche, and write about their diligence.

With French parents and much of her life in France, Aria sees a way out of the spotlight, a break from the shame brought upon herself and her family. She learns that Roche has attained a high rank without the benefit of the bourgeois family ties many have used to get ahead. He’s respected, but he is not liked, especially by de Charbonnet. She senses that if she writes about Roche’s failings, de Charbonnet can justify appointing someone more fitting to take his job. Before she even meets Roche, she feels trapped in the middle of the judgments of these two men.

Roche bristles at Aria’s arrival. He resents an outsider—an American, a journalist, and a woman—subjecting his team to round-the-clock scrutiny. And he knows how much de Charbonnet would love to demote him.

At Roche and Aria’s first meeting, there is mutual dislike. And then she mentions attending a play that night and Roche is gobsmacked. It's a one-night-only performance of Hamlet’s Father and the hottest ticket in Paris. The lead actors are iconic octogenarians Solange and Bertrand Gabriel, whose careers were launched in these same roles fifty years earlier—and who happen to be old friends of Aria’s family, as is the play's preeminent director Max Formande. Aria has an extra ticket—her mother is too ill to join her—and hopes that her largesse might soften Roche a bit. She gives him the ticket.

They meet at the theater and the tension remains, not helped when, during a quick intermission, she pulls out her recorder and begins to interview him. As Act II of the play begins, Solange Gabriel throws out a cue for actress Camilla Rodolfo, but it goes unanswered… twice. She exits stage left. Director Max Formande finds Roche and begs him to come backstage. With Aria close behind, they go to Camilla’s dressing room and find her brutally murdered.

Roche gets to work. His first move is to call his two dedicated young detectives, Anuj Kumar and Tenna Berglof. Again, Roche expresses resentment when he sees Aria recording everyone. But how can she not? This has the makings of a big story; she can feel it in her bones. And dogging Roche and his team is what she was hired to do.

The plot, as they say, thickens. (Who “they” are, I’ve no idea!) First there’s the dead actress, and then the attempt to kill young Joseph, the lighting technician. Why is actor Anton Delant making this investigation so difficult? Clearly, he has much to hide. And the elderly Gabriels? Outrageous as it seems, all evidence points to them. As Aria and Roche peel away the layers, they discover that appearances are not only deceiving, they can be deadly.
 
It gives me great pleasure that nearly every reviewer admits to being surprised when they learn who the killer is. I’m reminded of mystery writer Anne Perry’s comment about revealing the murderer: surprise is great, as long as it makes sense. So, the response “I didn’t see that coming, but there were hints all along the way!” is truly satisfying. I hope The Curtain Falls in Paris offers a few good surprises for all readers.

Sometime in my fifties, my mother told me that I was a late bloomer. Now that I’m eighty, and with several novels coming out in the next three years, I wonder what she’d say. As for my father? His insistence that I never quit, never give up, and follow every project to completion has paid off.
 
Victoria Zackheim is the author of novels "The Bone Weaver" and "The Curtain Falls in Paris" (May 2025), with two sequels (2026, 2027).  She is the creator/editor of seven anthologies, including the international bestseller "The Other Woman", adapted to the theater and performed in several dozen theaters across the United States, and Faith. She wrote the documentary "Where Birds Never Sang: The Story of Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen Concentration Camps", which aired nationwide on PBS. She teaches creative nonfiction in the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and is a frequent conference speaker and writing instructor in the US and abroad. A freelance editor, Victoria has worked with many authors on their novels and memoirs. She is a San Francisco Library Laureate and lives in Northern California.