"great French mystery"

In January 1995 in the working class neighborhood of Montmartre in Paris, the police arrest fellow officer Laure Rousseau for killing her partner, Jacques. She swears she is innocent as she explains to her childhood friend private investigator Aimee Leduc that Jacques was meeting an informer with her as his backup when he was killed; she was arrested because her gun was fired and residue was on her hands. She persuades Aimee of her innocence and to take on her case.

Aimee knows she will find the truth somewhere in the dingiest sections of Montmartre. There she immediately meets a boy who swears he witnessed the killing; she believes him, but also knows he will not be credible with the police or the courts. Other clues lead to danger from street hooligans and a Corsican separatist group that wants Aimee to leave the neighborhood. Instead the intrepid sleuth keeps digging, but soon finds the investigation takes a side tangent involving her deceased father and buried under the soot of police indiscretions, scandals, and illegalities that seem to touch her not so clean friend.

In her sixth French mystery, the Aimee Leduc tales are some of the best private investigative novels on the market over the past half a decade or so. MURDER IN MONTMARTRE is a bit darker than usual, but sill retains that powerful story line that grips the audience form the moment that the two long time friends discuss the murder. Fans will want to go with Aimee as she goes home to find clues to what went wrong in order to exonerate her buddy, but the mean streets of Montmartre are even gloomier and grittier than her nightmares. Cara Black is at her best with her latest murder in France thriller.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted July 9, 2006