IN THE SPIRIT OF FRENCH MURDER

An American expatriate investigates the murder of her grandfather’s Resistance buddies in postwar Paris.

As she drives from the Left Bank to the Right Bank to meet with a student, tutor Tabitha Knight makes it clear that she loves, loves, loves her adopted city. Her grand-père Saint-Léger and his partner, Oncle Rafe, live in a “very French” mansion on the Rue de l’Université, across the street from culinary student Julia Child, who feeds her and her messieurs boeuf bourguignon and vichyssoise at every opportunity. Tabitha cuts her hair in a “short, very chic, very French” style and develops a presumably very French crush on Étienne Merveille, a Parisian police inspecteur. Fortunately, she has plenty of opportunity to spend time with hunky Merveille. Soon after Madame Vierca, a clairvoyant, warns Tabitha of the impending deaths of the Neuf Bleuets, a band of aging freedom fighters who battled the Germans and their Vichy collaborators, they obligingly start to turn up knifed, poisoned, and/or burned to death. Fearing for her beloved grand-père, Tabitha searches for the Bleuets’ killer. But despite her obsession with all things French, her approach to her investigation is straight up American: nosy, intrusive, and headstrong. She styles up her wardrobe with one of those berets rarely worn outside Basque Country and interviews suspects left and right, ignoring any personal danger and driving Merveille crazy. The saddest part is seeing Julia Child play second fiddle to this ditz.

Like taking a bath in Dubonnet.