THE MOST MYSTERIOUS BOOKSHOP IN PARIS

A retired FBI profiler opens a bookstore in Paris.

It’s a week before the opening of Hugo’s Mystery & Antiquarian Bookshop on rue Jacob in the Marais, and Hugo Marston has just interviewed his first prospective shop assistant when J. Bradford Taylor, American ambassador to France, bustles in asking him to undertake an urgent mission on behalf of a U.S. citizen. Satisfied that his interviewee can take proper care of his pet project, Hugo allows Taylor to whisk him away to Eclat de Chocolat, an impossibly high-end chocolate factory housed in a former convent tucked away in a garden in the middle of Paris, virtually invisible to passersby. The factory is the pet project of Claire Easton, who, unlike Hugo, is not retired but simply filthy rich. She want to know who’s left blackmail notes threatening to expose the company’s “dirty secret.” Discovering what that secret is and who’s threatening to reveal it is is Hugo’s job, but several murders threaten to divert his attention almost entirely. Considering he owns the most mysterious bookstore in Paris, Hugo offers pretty tame stuff: nothing more than a lost cigarette case worth investigating. The greatest puzzle is actually Hugo himself. Would an ex-FBI agent trapped in a deserted convent during a snowstorm really let his cellphone battery run down listening to jazz instead of immediately recharging it in case of a power outage? Would he leave his bookstore in the care of a stranger after a 10-minute interview and no background check?

Pryor takes his hero’s new beginning way beyond credulity.