Aimée Leduc Risks All, in MURDER AT THE PORTE DE VERSAILLES, by Cara Black

This 20th adventure of the style-conscious and cash-poor Parisian detective Aimée Leduc takes the single parent into a collision of dates and pressures, and Cara Black ramps the tension up with page-turning plotting that never relaxes.

It's November 2001—do you recall those first few months after 9/11, when the world had become (for Americans in particular) a much more frightening place? With bomb threats and danger "codes" and new forms of airline security? 

All that and more are resonating for Leduc, as she hosts a birthday celebration for her three-year-old daughter, mourns her father (he'd died on the same date), and begins to consider leaving Paris behind, to live more safely on a farm with her little daughter's father. But wait, that would also mean leaving behind her detective agency, and her close friends and colleagues, too.

Before the pressure has a chance to reach decision point, a crime shatters the family-and-friends gathering: Boris Viard, who left the party to go back to work and pick up his forgotten gift for the child, is desperately injured in a bomb explosion at his workplace, the Laboratoire Central de Police. Now it's a crime scene, for MURDER AT THE PORTE DE VERSAILLES.

Fans of the series and newcomers alike will guess quickly that by sending her little one away with papa to the farm in order to concentrate on clearing Boris of accusations that he set the bomb, Aimée makes an unexpected gap in her emotional life—one that another investigator may sense and be drawn toward.

Or is it just her detective skills that counterterrorism pro Loïc Bellan is recruiting?

"You owe me," Aimée said. "Plus, I'm your colleague now."

She put her hand on his arm. He turned, an intent look in his eyes. She inhaled the leather tang of his jacket, realized how warm his arm was through his sweater sleeve. The heat he generated just sitting there. She noticed the length of his eyelashes.

Idiot. Stop it. Heat flushed her neck.

Never get involved with a flic.

Especially a flic her father had a history with.

The effort to clear Boris will take all the investigatory skills and connections that Leduc and her detection partner René can muster. But it may also cost her more than she can afford.

Cara Black's narrative skills and suspense-laden pacing have never been better. The absence of that adored daughter frees up Leduc to push harder and absorb extra risks, and without details of little sticky hands, babysitters, and bedtimes, the action moves with power and authenticity. 

New to the series? Don't worry, there's no catch-up needed. Long-term fan? Enjoy Black's surge into her best writing yet.

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

For the Gift List: Cara Black, MURDER IN BEL-AIR

It's time to shop for holiday gifts. One book for me, one book for you. Isn't that fair enough, from one book lover to another?

Cara Black's MURDER IN BEL-AIR, number 19 in her astonishing series featuring single-mom Parisian detective Aimée Leduc, may be her best yet. With a robustly complex plot that involves the disappearance of Aimée's own mother, as well as others, this crime novel plunges into both the Leduc family complications and the criminal enterprises of the City of Lights. And it's full of moments that capture this stylish detective at her most determined an active, like this:

She'd struck a chord. Thrown him off-balance.

"Where are you from?" she asked.

"Arles." His answer came too quick. And she'd never heard a Provençal accent like his. Not even close to that musical patois.

She saw him tense, and his lips moved—he was whispering something.

Merde. Was he wired?

With no more of a plan than to get the hell out, she accelerated, veering left as she kicked straight out with her right foot. Counted on the element of surprise. Her stiletto heel got him in the thigh. Wobbling over the cobblestones in the rain, the scooter shot forward and out of the courtyard.

Right into traffic. Her handlebars scraped a van, and she almost lost her balance. But somehow she kept going, weaving in the downpour with a cacophony of horns blaring behind her.

Black's author note at the start connects the plot to her own mother, and her lithe depictions of strong vibrant women in MURDER IN BEL-AIR contributes to the story's swift action and bright undercurrents. No need to read the other 18 titles first ... get this one for yourself for holiday-season relaxing, and give a copy to one of your best friends as well.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

MURDER ON THE LEFT BANK, Aimée Leduc 18 from Cara Black

Who knows what goes on behind the scenes of a long-running mystery series? A few authors have the knack of making each fresh title seem as good as all the ones before it -- or better. But most go up and down a bit, or some titles appeal more to some readers, and so on.

Whatever the pattern is, Cara Black busted clear from it in her epic 18th Aimée Leduc mystery, MURDER ON THE LEFT BANK. Best yet! Each of Black's mysteries with the stylish Parisian detective, now a single mom with a network of support people, has focused on a particular quartier of Paris. This highly successful one begins with a lawyer in the 13th arrondissement, a friend of Aimée's, whose effort to take a shortcut with a compromising document results in the death of his own nephew. Stricken and guilt-wrenched, Éric Besson persuades Aimée to search for the now-missing document -- which leads directly to the crime and power syndicate that Aimée recognizes from murder and betrayal in her own family. Is her deceased father involved in the document? Does she need to stop yet another attack -- one that could affect her own baby Chloé?

Black's plotting is intense and acutely paced, with twists in each chapter and a smooth and powerful narrative that sweeps through the book. She deftly weaves in her usual details of her detective's passion for (gently used) couture clothing along while also slipstreaming her amazing detective agency partner René:

Aimée joined the applause as René presented the award. She then found a flute of champagne and him in that order.

"Nice speech," she said.

His large green eyes popped. "Nice outfit."

She'd worn her cowboy boots and a denim jacket over a black liquid sequin mini accessorized with a slouchy Céline boho bag. Give the outfits here, it was a good thing she'd left the couture in her armoire.  ... She groaned.

"Smile until it hurts," he said. "At least your sequins will grab their attention."

But Aimée is going to need a lot of replacement items for the adventurous pace of her investigation into Paris's power demons:

The garden had ended at a wall. Footsteps crashed in the dark underbrush. Aimée shined her penlight, revealing red smears streaking the glossy leaves.

Blood. Her knees trembled. Whose blood?

Aimée heard a high-pitched whine of a cat in heat and then René's shout: "Over here!"

Had René found Éric?

She forged ahead, continuing along the wall until she came to a woman's slumped figure.

Aimée stumbled, caught herself. "Karine?"

Karine's glassy-eyes stare reflected in Aimée's penlight beam. The tarnished, paint-spattered handle of a pair of scissors protruded from Karine's neck.

"Mon Dieu," said René.

Although Aimée is a private investigator, her adventures tend to feel closer to those of an amateur sleuth: probing each possible combination of means, motive, and opportunity, until things grow dangerous and her own degree of risk shows she's closing in on the criminal(s) responsible. In MURDER ON THE LEFT BANK, she's not just putting herself at risk -- her baby's under threat. So the pace accelerates, the threats multiply, and even her skillful friends may have trouble keeping her safe.

If you missed a few of the 18 previous books, you'll still handle this one well, since Black brings in just the right amount of detail from the earlier investigations. And it's so well crafted that it may well tug you back to the earliest books in the series (say, Murder in the Marais).

This is a great season to focus on collecting the first editions of Black's mysteries, since she's already hinting this series may come to a natural finale when all the districts of Paris have had their places in her mysteries. Good reading, via Soho Crime, an imprint of Soho Press. And ideal for the summer reading stack.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Cara Black/Aimée Leduc Paris Mystery 17, MURDER IN SAINT-GERMAIN

Good news for Cara Black mystery fans -- number 17 in the very entertaining Aimée Leduc series is released today. And MURDER IN SAINT-GERMAIN takes the Parisian detective in a fresh new direction: sorting out an espionage-related set of crimes that cross her path.

That's not simple for the new and mostly single mom who runs a cybersecurity firm, where ideally she could stay at a desk like her detection partners, checking videotape and files. But even that turns active in this mystery, with a client demanding in-person service that sends Leduc scrambling for changes of couture -- and there's nothing like scrambling across rooftops encrusted with pigeon waste, to make a gal pull off her designer footwear and tackle the task barefoot after all.

Aimée Leduc is also scrambling for child care, as her darling baby, newly mobile, needs careful care, but the usual caregivers aren't available. When Melac, the baby's hunky but disloyal dad, steps up to cover the gap, a mysterious woman that Melac introduces as his mother (who knew?!) also enters.

Even while sorting out Bosnians, Serbians, and war criminals, Leduc's own confused past keeps claiming her attention. Is her godfather, Morbier, dying in a hospital as a result of her own actions? Has she been unfair? Do the Paris police care whether she was right or wrong, or will they simply all make her life harder as punishment for her injuring their hero, Morbier?

This one's a lively page turner, and even comes with a map to help put the detection and suspense into geographical perspective. Series fans will find it a "must"; if you're new to the series, it still reads well, but you may want to skip back a couple of titles to get background on the sometimes chaotic issues and relationships! Otherwise the sometimes choppy chapters can be a bit distracting.

As I write this, Paris is in the breaking news for an attack on a police officer at the cathedral of Notre Dame; better to have the crimes in the fiction instead. Add this one to the summer reading stack for light fun.

Checklist of titles, newest last, thanks to the Cara Black website:

Murder in the Marais (1999)
Murder in Belleville (2000)
Murder in the Sentier (2003)
Murder in the Bastille (2004) Murder in Clichy (2005)
Murder in Montmartre (2006) Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis (2007) Murder in the Rue de Paradis (2008) Murder in the Latin Quarter (2009) Murder in the Palais Royale (2010) Murder in Passy (2011)
Murder at the Lanterne Rouge (2012) Murder Below Montparnasse (2013) Murder In Pigalle (2014)
Murder on the Champ de Mars (2015) Murder on the Quai (2016)
Murder in Saint-Germain (2017)

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here. 

Bold New Aimée Leduc Crime Novel, MURDER ON THE QUAI, Cara Black

Someday I'll see Paris -- and when I do, I hope there will be an "app" for my smartphone that directs me to all the "quartiers" where the Aimée Leduc mysteries take place, with details of plot, and suggestions for where to enjoy the morning coffee-and-croissant or the evening dining and dancing. Wouldn't that be great? It's also an incentive to read these popular detective novels, set in that glittering and romantic city.  With MURDER ON THE QUAI, Cara Black provides her 16th title.

Long-time fans of the series will be startled to open this book and find a young Aimée, already clever at finding secondhand clothing with haute couture, struggling to do homework and prepare for a test in medical school! The book's actually a prequel to the other 15, and it introduces the reasons this stylish young woman will desert the classroom to take over her family's detective business -- as well as providing answers to many questions readers may have wondered about in the past, like how she started riding motorbikes, where her dog (named Miles Davis, a bichon frise) came from, how she met her super-hacker dwarf partner in crimesolving René, and -- most urgent of all -- the truth of how her father was framed and (gulp) met a dire end.

But if you've never read a Cara Black/Aimée Leduc mystery before, this one's still a great place to start. It opens in November 1989, on the weekend when the Berlin Wall was torn down. Quick math: that would be just 44 years since Paris's occupation, right? So of course, there's a plot thread involving Nazi brutality and gold, as well as Resistance fighters -- many still living at that time, as well as their children, and you know that part about how many generations will carry a crime with them? (Well, okay, the Bible says it differently, but you know what I mean, right?)

I enjoyed romping with Aimée through the Paris days and nights, and watching her grasp each hint and clue about both a crime she happens to investigate, and her own family's secrets. No wonder she chose a different route from medical school -- investigation and operating on a blend of sharp reasoning and fierce instinct suit her like a ... shall we say, like a tenderly aged Chanel jacket??

From Soho Press, which has been Cara Black's publisher from the start -- a gem of a prequel, indeed.

Cara Black, MURDER ON THE CHAMP DE MARS (March Publication)

I love this image of Cara Black with her newest Aimée Leduc investigation: MURDER ON THE CHAMP DE MARS. This is the 15th in the well-liked series, and Aimée is at a critical point in her career and her personal life: She's a single mom to a six-month-old, struggling to keep her detection and security business profitable, while sleep-deprived and always late for everything (for those who don't have kids, here's the thing about it -- with each addition to the household, it's harder and harder to get somewhere on time).

MURDER ON THE CHAMP DE MARS open in Paris (of course!) with the detective once again racing the clock, trying to complete a surveillance task and still get home in time for her own darling baby's christening. But what should be a sweet (and brief) event with little Chloé and a few friends turns personally menacing, with the unexpected arrival of her ex-lover, father of her baby -- and he's not there to reconcile with her, but to introduce his newly acquired wife, as well as a hunger to take custody of the baby.

Small wonder that the arrival of an important clue to Aimée's own past, in the form of a boy who is a French Gypsy, one of the Romany people known in Paris as les manouches. The boy needs immediate help for his mother, who's in a hospital, on her deathbed, insisting on revealing only to Aimée a secret about Aimée's own (long-dead) father. It's a dangerous secret, one with roots in the Second World War, the concentration camps, and people still living who have betrayed each other.

Black does a masterful job of keeping the threads of suspense pulled taut, and braiding this complex investigation that puts Aimée Leduc and her family, friends, and career at risk in two directions at once. No, you don't need to read the others in the series before this one, although it would help you grasp why this detective wears Louboutin heels while on stake-out and considers a vintage Courreges dress to be part of her surveillance uniform -- so you may want to indulge in the others after devouring this latest title. The series is cleverly set in the 1990s, so technology has almost no role in the detection, and a quick mind and open heart and a team of allies are the essentials of the job. From Soho Crime, of course! (March 3 release.)

Not Just French, but Parisian: New Aimée Leduc Investigation, MURDER IN PIGALLE

Cara Black takes us to one neighborhood of Paris after another, each the focus of one book in her Aimée Leduc investigations. This is the fourteenth, and the action involves the district of Pigalle -- nightclubs, bars, the kind of entertainment you don't want your kids knowing about (and maybe not your mom either, if you're not French!). So there's a double irony that Leduc's sleuthing keeps taking her back to this sketchy neighborhood, after dark, in the search for Zazie, the 13-year-old daughter of one of Leduc's friends. It's an investigation with urgency, because Zazie (what a kid!) has been following Aimée Leduc's example, trying to investigate a serial rapist who's terrorizing the neighborhood and a genuine threat Zazie's own peers. Has her "snooping" (complete with taking photos) made her a threat to a seasoned criminal? As the hours tick past, Aimée is increasingly sick at heart, knowing that kidnappers and molesters who hold a child longer are much less likely to release that child.

Complicating Leduc's trademark pavement-trotting in kitten heels and stylish clothing is her own condition: pregnant. She's got the world's longest lasting case of morning sickness, an obvious bulge on her belly, medical appointments to keep (with her assistant sleuth René backing her up, making suggestions about food and baby names and childbirth), and her emotions about "the Bump" are calling up new reactions to a missing child and danger to other girls. And then there's the matter of the baby's father. But that's too complicated to handle during this investigation, yes? No?

Black's Paris is full of energy and enthusiasm, as well as crime and love, and with Aimée Leduc, the most obvious choices are often half thought through, in the rush to uncover evidence, find a trail, do something, now! The combination of threats in MURDER IN PIGALLE drives the plot at breakneck speed -- for me, this is the best Aimée Leduc investigation yet!

Of course, there are a few threads left dangling for the next book (smile). But all in all: a lively and highly satisfying (and very Parisian!) mystery!

PS -- It's from Soho Crime. Of course!