MURDER IN THE RUE DE PARADIS

Murder spoils a reunion between French detective Aimée Leduc (Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis, 2007, etc.) and her lost love Yves Robert.

The last time Aimée Leduc saw her lover was on a Paris street corner as he waved goodbye and left for an undercover assignment with Agence France Presse. Now he’s back, putting a Turkish betrothal ring on her finger and swearing he’s been reassigned home. But after one passionate night together, Aimée wakes to an empty bed and a phone call from Brigade Criminelle about a body found in the Rue de Paradis. Naturally, the body is Yves’s, and naturally, instead of grieving, Aimée goes on a hunt for his killers. Mailliol of the Brigade warns her to butt out; her old friend Morbier is on his first vacation in history; and Yves’s colleagues at AFP are in no hurry to return her voicemails. Nohant, a security guard at the Baccarat gallery across from the crime scene, saw nothing, but her counterpart Vatel may have—only he’s been reassigned. Still, Vatel’s a Turk, just like Jalenka Malat, the Kurdish MP whose name was stashed in Yves’s wallet, maybe because he’s the target of a Islamist plot. Can Aimée put the pieces together in time to thwart the terrorists and avenge her lover?

Black’s seventh takes longer to get in gear than an old Renault, and tastes less of Paris than earlier outings.