Great was the relief and happiness on Friday, October 11 2019 (this year) when the news began to circulate in France that Xavier Dupont De Ligonnès, the ‘alleged’ assassin of his family – Agnès (his wife) and their four children – Arthur, Thomas, Anne and Benoit – had been arrested at Glasgow Airport […]
Every day people – French and foreigners – come to Rue Le Sueur in the chic and expensive 16th arrondissement of Paris. They walk down the street, the Eiffel Tower ahead, but for once the tower does not draw even a glance. Instead they stop at No. 21, a six-storey building, half-way down the […]
In 1992 I wrote about a scructural error in Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral, and that the building was not all that secure. My piece was published on Thursday, May 7, 1992, in the Johannsburg-based ‘The Star’ daily. At that time restoration work to the cathedral was being undertaken and in charge was French architect […]
Book trees have come to Paris. But what is a book trees? It is a tree trunk in which a ‘shelf’ or ‘shelves’ have been carved and where books are left for passersby to help themselves to a book – or books. The idea originated in the USA. You can find such book trees in […]
Not only writing, but also paintings, here as some of my paintings. All are for sale … so if you are interested, you can contact me on this site. I will shortly post more of my paintings, so drop in again. Tweet #MarilynZTomlins
Cemeteries? You won’t walk by one after dark? Here beyond the windows behind my desk is a cemetery. The tombs I cannot see, a building blocking my view, but what I can see are, on a summer day, some leafy green trees. But it does not upset me because I love cemeteries: I am a […]
Paris’s Louvre Museum has become the most visited museum in the world. All of 10 million people visited it in 2018: its highest number of visitors ever. Most of the 10 million were Americans, with the Chinese a close second. So what do we Parisians think of this? A sigh is the reply. A […]
Shame does stick it’s head out at the most inconvenient and thus embarrassing moments. France is leading the centenary commemoration of the end of WW1 – the Great War. Over sixty world leaders will be here on Sunday, November 11, for the main ceremony at Paris’s Arc de Triomphe. President Trump will be one […]
When Dr Marcel Petiot (see my book Die in Paris) was guillotined on Saturday, May 25, 1945, he had a scar on his left foot. Always was this man – France’s most prolific serial killer – proud of the scar. He showed it to those he told the story of his Great War experience. […]
On September 17, 2017 (last year) I wrote here on this website how Englishman Adrian Spong has in his possession two artworks he believes are by Vincent van Gogh. Having studied Mr Spong’s research, I believe he has. You can read what I wrote here – https://www.marilynztomlins.com/articles/vincent-van-gogh-death-of-the-virgin-is-this-painting-a-van-gogh/ In fact, I recommend that you do read […]
A proposal for a one-off dramatized television documentary based on the true-crime book ‘Die in Paris’ by Marilyn Z. Tomlins, published in the U.K. by Ravencrest Books Ltd. The Subject: Dr Marcel Petiot, WW2 French serial killer. Dr Marcel Petiot was one of the 20th Century’s most notorious – and prolific – murderers. […]
Is there anything more French than the guillotine, you may well ask? As a true crime writer resident in France, I’ve written about this head-chopping apparatus, first put to work in 1792 and last put to work in 1981, four years after capital punishment had been abolished by a parliamentary vote (1977). One of […]
Money makes the world go round, it is said. Money also turns people into murderers: those not having it, wanting it. And murdering to have it. This case – the fatal shooting of Monaco billionaires, Hélène Pastor, on Tuesday, May 6, 2014 – is such a case. I reported the shooting in detail and I […]
In July this year of 2018 France’s prison population was 70,710. This number is out of France’s population which comes to 65,286,555 of whom about 6 million are foreign-born. Not bad, would you say? The French are behaving themselves. Not if you consider that France ‘s prisons can accommodate just 60,000. Therefore, France’s prisons […]
For the first half of this year of 2018 17,1 million tourists have come to Paris and the Ile de France (Paris region). Paris, since the end of WW2, having, each year, received more visitors than any other city in the world, has never ever had such a tourist boom. Tell it to us who […]
