Mystery/Thriller Reading Friends discussion

This is the first section of chapters 16-30. Spoilers are welcome. If the first to post could briefly summarize to drive the discussion it would be appreciated!

ok, let's see if I can summarize without re-reading as much as in the first few chapters. this was an action packed segment where as the first fifteen chapters introduced us to the families who claimed baby Lylie / Emilie / Lyse-Rose and the detective Credule Gand-Duc who is telling us of the events after the crash in his journal, a notebook saved from the fire when he burns eighteen years of research.

Chapter 16 - Marvina is quite a wild card, she is described as a twenty-four year old with a teenage body and the face of a thirty-year old woman. She scares Grand-Duc and is purported to be mad. Let's see what she is up to.

Chapter 17 - Marc goes to Grand-Duc's house and frantically texts Lylie, he breaks in and discovers the body of the detective in the hastily cleaned murder scene, he rescues the dragonflies.

Chapter 18 -Malvina calls her grandmother and plans to get the notebook from Marc.

Chapter 19 - Marc is planning to go to the de Carville's estate. He thinks naively that they are now on the same side of the mystery of Lylie's parentage.

Chapter 20 - Ayla Ozan is the wife of Nazim, Grand-Duc's partner.

Chapter 21 - Lylie calls Marc with a voice message and leaves him stunned that she is planning suicide. I don't think that is it, she is planning murder but I am not sure who. She is thinking about her situation.

Chapter 22 - Marc is stunned by Grand-Duc's details of his grandparents' accident when he was four years old and by Lylie's voice message. He becomes more cautious and hides the notebook. Pierre doesn't survive, Grand-Duc uncovers a doctored photo and has wild speculations.

Chapter 23 - Nicole visits Pierre's grave every day, she knows where Emilie is and what she intends. We on the other hand do not know (at least I don't) except that it has to do with murder, Nicole wishes she could help and Marc thinks she plans to commit suicide.

Chapter 24 - Marc is heading across Paris and see the towers of Disneyland. Jumping around again we learn the details of the cause of Pierre's death and the "accident". Grand-Duc was suspicious, Leonce de Carville has a series of heart attacks. Another red herring? Marc thinks he has something hidden in his room that is a clue, he just figured this out.

Chapter 25 - The journal continues. Grand-Duc meets with Nicole and negotiates with her to stay in contact with Lylie.

Chapter 26 - Marc encounters Malvina for the first time - as she points a gun at him. he realizes she may have killed Grand-Duc

Chapter 27 - Lylie is drunk and in a bar. I do not know what she is up to, but she shouldn't be there and is not really safe

Chapter 28 - Mathilde de Carville taunts Marc and asks if Lylie was wearing the ring indicating Nicole thinks she is the de Carville's granddaughter. She doesn't approve of Marc loving Lylie and gives him a sealed envelope of DNA results - for Nicole, not for him; she makes him tea from her own garden where she grows poisonous plants; he collapses. (an attack or poison?)

Chapter 29 - Ayla Ozan, the wife of Grand-Duc's Turkish partner is searching for her husband, he hasn't been seen for two days.

Chapter 30 - Marc leaves the estate, but encounters Malvina who takes him back in and shows him the baby girl's room that is a shrine to Lyse-Rose - eighteen years of presents, clothes, toys a time capsule, the room is creepy. Malvina is even more creepy.

The story jumps around a lot with the journal being read and digested by Marc in bits and pieces and snippets of details are revealed before the actual part of the story. There are a lot of red herrings and I can't imagine they will all come to something.
We wonder (of course) whether Lylie is actually Lyse-Rose or Emilie but also what Mathilde plans to do or has done with her poisonous plants; what happened to Grand-Duc's partner or at the least where is he. What is Lylie up to, who is she planning on murdering and why?
and why didn't Marc read the entire notebook, will it really be missing the last pages?

I am starting to be suspicious of Mathilde de Carville possibly having something to do with her husband's heart attacks. Perhaps not, but suspicious with those plants she has in her garden.

Not sure what to think after reading this section. My impression of Marc and Malvina has stayed the same in that they are both disturbed though Malvina is far worse and frankly almost comically bad. Not sure what Lylie is actually up to and agree that the whole bar encounter was unsafe and weird. Mathilde definitely seems to be up to something and seems to be using Marc in some way. The only reasonable character has been Ayla who quite rightly senses there is something amiss with the situation.

Sandi: a bit of a general statement, I thought this today as I listened to some of the next chapters - on the audio it may be the narration, but the back and forth conversations between Malvina and Marc come across as almost comical. And they are both pretty serious about the interactions, it just seems farcical.

I did find this section frustrating and just want marc to finish the journal. It seems crazy to go to the de carvilles before he has read it especially since that I his best way of finding out what lylie is up to and with all the warnings from grand duc about how bad the family is. The repeated voice mail chasing is frustrating also. The scene in the Bar is very odd and maybe her dealing with anger at being lied to for so long. As it stands malvina is an unstable killer and marc seems a love sick puppy doing anything to find lylie and find out what she's up to. Mathilde is cold and calculating and cant put it past her to be a killer.
At the moment still just lots of questions with no answers.

Malvina showing off Lyse-Rose's bedroom to Marc was macabre, sympathetic, and effective. I agree with you, Sandi, that both Malvina and Marc are deeply disturbed. Malvina's insanity is out in the open. Marc's becomes more apparent over time--his apparent carnal interests in his sister (even if she's not his sister by blood), his agoraphobia, and deciding not to call the police when he finds Grand-Duc's corpse!

Russ: The bedroom shrine for Lyse-Rose was something. Sad, creepy and it made me wonder what Lylie would think of it if she ever was there in the house. Malvina's actions and mindset becomes a tab more explainable, we knew from the first that Grand-Duc said she was crazy and scary but we didn't really know why he thought that.

Jack: Exactly, I was screaming at Marc to read it all and not delay. How could he keep putting it down and risk not being able to finish reading it.
Jack wrote: "I did find this section frustrating and just want marc to finish the journal. It seems crazy to go to the de carvilles before he has read it especially since that I his best way of finding out what lylie is up to..."