22 September 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-990550-49-2 (HB)
Renowned criminal psychologist Cait Morgan has been in Paris for five weeks, lecturing at the Sorbonne. The work has been so intensive that she has had no opportunity to enjoy her stay in Paris, but now the course is complete and she is free to enjoy herself. Cait has moved to a livelier, less conventional hotel than the one the university had chosen for her; and her husband, Bud Anderson, a retired homicide detective, has travelled from Canada to join her for a week of sightseeing and pleasure.
On their first full day in Paris, Cait and Bud are on the top deck of a tour bus, which is held up in traffic. Cait looks out of the bus window and sees a woman, in the adjacent building, who is being strangled. It is a scenario that Cait compares to a classic Agatha Christie novel, especially as she cannot see enough of the assailant to identify them, or even be certain of their gender. In a macabre twist, the victim appears to have a neck that glows like amber metal. At this point the bus moves on, but, as soon as they can get it to stop, Cait and Bud retrace their route to the place where Cait had witnessed the attack. They discover that the building where the strangling occurred is the Maison Églantine, a famous and innovative fashion house, and the doorman, Lucienne, tells them that the woman Cait describes resembles Madame Églantine, the genius who had founded the fashion house. He admits that Madame Églantine is present in the building and that she wears a necklace made from amber beads that covers her neck and chest. However, Lucienne insists that the presence of a catering team on that floor of the building means that it is impossible for anybody to have attacked Madame Églantine without being detected. In fact, the whole fashion house is buzzing with activity because it is preparing for a major exhibition, alongside all the other great fashion names in Paris, and Lucienne determinedly dismisses Cait’s concerns.
For most foreign tourists there would be no way to push this forward, and no way they would be believed if they tried to report it. However, Cait is not a person to walk away when she believes that a violent crime has been committed, and Bud trusts her powers of observation enough to back her to the hilt, so the couple report what she has seen to the police. Here good fortune comes to Cait’s aid when she encounters Pierre Bertrand, a young detective with whom she had worked five years ago, when he was a police lieutenant in Nice. Pierre has been inspired by Cait to study criminology and he has great respect for her extraordinary powers of observation and her eidetic memory. His recommendation means that Captain Francine de Gaulle (no relation to the great General) takes Cait seriously and makes the bold decision to include Cait and Bud in the investigation, although in an informal way.
The Maison Églantine is a lavish, elegant place, and the members of Églantine’s central team are a diverse, and yet closely bonded group: the doorman, business manager, original model and two seamstresses have all been with Églantine since early in her career; and the daughter of the model and manager, has known Églantine all her life. The only newcomer is the fashion designer that Madame Églantine has brought in as her own replacement, because she knows that she is old and her cognitive powers are failing. When the police search the Maison Églantine they can find no trace of Églantine. Those closest to her claim that at first they thought she had wandered away and they had searched the house and neighbourhood for her; and when this proved ineffective, they insist she must have been kidnapped. However, Cait is certain of what she saw, and, as the investigation continues, she remains in the claustrophobic atmosphere of Maison Églantine to use her extraordinary abilities to probe the history, personality and fate of a very remarkable woman.
The
Corpse With the Amber Neck is the fifteenth novel in the series featuring Cait
Morgan and Bud Anderson. It is an excellent addition to a superb series, with
an engaging protagonist who has remarkable abilities, which she has to use
great self-discipline to access. Cait and Bud are likeable, very human
characters, whose personalities and relationship develop with each story. This
is a completely stand-alone novel, but one of the interesting features of the
series is that characters from earlier novels often make return appearances,
which adds to the richness of the narrative. The setting is vividly drawn and
the plot is cleverly constructed, with subtle homages to the Golden Age of
Detective Fiction, not least because it is a closed circle mystery, with a
limited number of possible suspects, and the crimes have their roots in the
secrets of the past. The Corpse With the Amber Neck is a page-turner, which I
wholeheartedly recommend.
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Reviewer:
Carol Westron
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