This was a Christmas book-swap novel from a someone in my book group. The task was to share a book we thought others would really like/should read. I wouldn't have read this book and went in begrudgingly. What a fool I was -and what a great lesson for the new year, because this book was fantastic. I give the writing a pure 5, and although I was completely drawn in, it doesn't sit with my top favourites, but it is a fantastic story set just before the French Revolution about a young engineer who is tasked with tearing down the largest, oldest and smelliest cemetery in Paris in order to 'purify' the city. The descriptions had me there in 1785.