‘Murder at the Lanterne Rouge’ By Cara Black

Published by Soho Crime,
March, 2012.
ISBN: 978-1-61695-061-3

The latest Aimee LeDuc mystery has one plot intertwined with two themes.  To begin with, we are introduced to a young Chinese woman, Meizi, with whom Aimee’s business partner, Rene, is deeply infatuated. She turns out to be an illegal immigrant, and Aimee determines to find out more about the woman to protect Rene before it might be too late.  At the same time, a young Frenchman is found murdered just outside the restaurant where Aimee, Rene and Meizi and her parents were dining.

During the dinner Meizi receives a phone call and abruptly leaves, disappearing, immediately becoming a suspect in the murder.  The victim it develops has made a unique discovery, and Aimee, together with Rene and their part-time geek, Saj, have to somehow find out what it was, while Aimee attempts to protect Meizi from an impending sweep of Chinatown by the police and find the killer.

Once again the author provides a sweeping panorama of the City of Lights, and perhaps a lot of Aimee’s fashion acquisitions (but after all, isn’t that what Paris, to some degree, is all about?).  Smoothly written and tightly plotted, the novel once again raises the question of whether Aimee will ever meet her mother, who is a wanted woman. Good reading, and recommended.
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Reviewer: Ted Feit

Earlier books are Murder in the Marais, Murder in the Chabris, Murder in Belleville, Murder in the Sentier, Murder in the Bastille, Murder in Clichy, Murder On the Ile Saintt-Louis, Murder in the Rue de Paradis, Murder in the Latin Quarter, Murder on the Palais Royal, Death in Passey

Cara Black lives in San Francisco with her husband, a bookseller, and their teenage son. She is a San Francisco Library Laureate and a member of the Paris Sociéte Historique in the Marais. Her nationally bestselling and award nominated Aimée Leduc Investigation series has been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Hebrew. She's included in the Great Women Writers by Elizabeth Lindsay Her first three novels in the series Murder in the Marais, Murder in Belleville and Murder in the Sentier -  nominated for an Anthony Award as Best Novel - were published in the UK in 2008 and, Murder in the Latin Quarter came out in the UK in 2010. Several of her books have been chosen as Book Sense Picks by the American Association of Independent Bookstores.

Ted and Gloria Feit live in Long Beach, NY, a few miles outside New York City.  For 26 years, Gloria was the manager of a medium-sized litigation firm in lower Manhattan. Her husband, Ted, is an attorney and former stock analyst, publicist and writer/editor for, over the years, several daily, weekly and monthly publications.  Having always been avid mystery readers, and since they're now retired, they're able to indulge that passion.  Their reviews appear online as well as in three print publications in the UK and US.  On a more personal note: both having been widowed, Gloria and Ted have five children and nine grandchildren between them.