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Murder at the Lanterne Rouge: (An Aimee Leduc Investigation #12)

Cara Black

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Jan 27, 2012 Leighton Gage rated it it was amazing

Remember all that brouhaha a number of years ago, when some people were trumpeting the wholesale abandonment of French cheese and telling us we should avoid Paris as a tourist destination?
Ya know what?
I have a suspicion that the people behind it secretly wore hair shirts and beat themselves with flails.
I mean, avoid Paris? Give me a break! If you aren’t a masochist, why would you want to torture yourself like that?
Okay, maybe you don’t like cheese, but surely you wouldn’t disagree with the immor Remember all that brouhaha a number of years ago, when some people were trumpeting the wholesale abandonment of French cheese and telling us we should avoid Paris as a tourist destination?
Ya know what?
I have a suspicion that the people behind it secretly wore hair shirts and beat themselves with flails.
I mean, avoid Paris? Give me a break! If you aren’t a masochist, why would you want to torture yourself like that?
Okay, maybe you don’t like cheese, but surely you wouldn’t disagree with the immortal Ernest about Paris. Remember what he called it?
That’s right: a moveable feast – a feast that Cara Black, in her Aimée Leduc series, serves up with all the quality of three-star Michelin.
If you’ve read just one of Ms. Black’s books, you know what I’m talking about.
What follows, is meant for the rest of you, those who have yet to meet Aimée Leduc.
Aimée is the daughter of an American mother, who took charge of her French father’s detective business after his death.
She’s a high-heeled, Gallic Kinsey Millhone with the fashion sense of a Parisienne and a penchant for bad boys.
And Cara Black, her creator, is the Sue Grafton of the City of Light.
Ms. Black’s latest, the fifteenth in the series, is a mere 320 pages long, but it’s as replete with action as a Romanée-Conti with bouquet.
In Murder at the Lanterne Rouge, Aimée links a manuscript half-a-millennium old to a modern murder, is pressured by two rival French security services, visits Paris’s Chinese underworld and, twice, narrowly escapes being murdered.
On the more personal level, René, her partner, has fallen head-over-heels in love with Meizi, a girl he’s just met. But she mysteriously disappears.
Aimée suspects there is something strange about Meizi’s parents – and there is.
Aimée’s mother, whom she’s been trying to track down for years, comes closer.
Her best friend involves her in a car wreck.
Her Godfather reveals additional secrets.
Her current boyfriend promises to spirit her away for a vacation in Martinique – and doesn’t.
And all of it is served up garnished by the sights, and sounds, and smells of one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
What’s not to like? Murder at the Lanterne Rouge is a feast indeed.
And you’re invited.
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