In April on Paris Street, a Montreal private investigator of half-Abenaki heritage takes a case that looks like old-school damsel in-distress rescue but that then turns into something unnervingly different. The narrative weaves working class Ashley Smeeton’s personal story (trying to connect with her Abenaki relatives, the death of a grandmother she’s hardly known, an ill-considered fling with a handsome vaurien) into the story of the privileged young woman, Mirabel Saint Cyr, whose fashion mogul husband hires her.
Against the backdrop of the Parisian winter Carnaval, the job first takes her to the city of lights where she’s drawn into an unsettling world of mirages and masks, not to mention the murderous Bortnik brothers. When Ashley returns to Montreal, a city rife with its own unreasonable facsimiles, the case incomprehensibly picks up again. Convinced she’s being played, she embarks on an even more dangerous journey into deception and uncertainty.
The conclusion of April on Paris Street reveals a long-hidden domestic secret and a recklessly decisive endgame that cause Ashley to question her previous views not only of Mirabel Saint Cyr, but of herself and the world. In a world of masks behind masks, it’s hard to say where the truth lies.
Release: September 2021