Murder in the Rue de Paradis-Cara Black

Murder in the Rue de Paradis
Cara Black
Soho, Mar 2008, $24.00
ISBN 9781569474747

In 1995 Paris remains shell-shocked from the recent bombings at the St.-Michel Metro. In that milieu of distrust, private investigator Aimee Leduc is elated to see her former boyfriend, investigative journalist Yves Robert. They share an incredible evening together topped off by his proposal, which she accepts.

The next morning the Paris police call Aimee to come to the city morgue in order to affirm the corpse is her fiancé of not even one day. Stunned and unable to let it go especially since the official police report is more interested in remaining politically correct preferring to blame an unknown male prostitute during these harrowing times rather than solving a murder, Aimee investigates. She believes that Yves was working undercover and with her partner Rene Friant make inquiries that tie Yves’ last assignment to bitter enemies Turkey and its Kurdish populace.

As always with an Aimee Leduc French mystery (see MURDER ON THE ILE SAINT-LOUIS), readers obtain a tour of Paris that the government and the tourist bureaus prefer to hide. The current case is very personal as Aimee and Rene follow clues that bring Paris to life. Readers will appreciate her obsessive need to know answers to whom and why as the MURDER IN THE RUE DE PARADIS is another outstanding French private investigative thriller.

Harriet Klausner