The Paris Librarian

June 27, 2016
Early in Pryor’s solid sixth Hugo Marston novel (after 2015’s The Reluctant Matador), Hugo, the security officer at the American embassy in Paris, visits the American Library in Paris, where his friend Paul Rogers is the director. When Hugo, a sympathetic lead with a strong moral compass, knocks on Paul’s office door, he gets no response. Since the door is locked, he must rely on a library employee with a key to open it. Inside, Paul is sitting in his chair, dead. Perhaps he died of natural causes, but of course it could be a case of foul play. Might there be a connection between Paul’s demise and the library having recently acquired the papers of American actress Isabelle Severin, now in her late 90s, who spied for the Allies in France during WWII? Pryor carefully plants clues amid the red herrings, though the obscure and somewhat tawdry solution may disappoint some readers. Agent: Ann Collette, Rees Literary Agency.

June 1, 2016
A Paris librarian's death is just the start of a series of mysterious occurrences.Former FBI profiler Hugo Marston, who's working at the U.S. Embassy in Paris and sharing an apartment with his best friend, CIA freelancer Tom Green, is intrigued by a call from Paul Rogers, the director of the American Library in Paris, about an upcoming book sale that may allow Hugo to add to his collection of signed first editions. At the library, Hugo gets Paul's assistant, Michael Harmuth, to let him into a basement room where Paul is no longer working on his own novel because he's suddenly died. Despite every appearance of natural death, Hugo has a bad feeling he shares with Lt. Camille Lerens, his friend in the Brigade Criminelle. Camille, who used to be Christophe, humors Hugo by using the death as a training exercise for a CSU team. Hugo knows from his friend Merlyn and her journalist pal Miki about Miki's plan to write a story about Isabelle Severin, a famous actress who's rumored to have been a spy and killed a Gestapo officer during World War II. Severin, now descending into dementia, has donated most of her personal papers to the American Library, but Miki wants access to the material she thinks Severin is holding back. Meanwhile, the police finally establish that Paul's curare poisoning was either suicide or murder. When his girlfriend is found dead, another apparent suicide, Hugo, certain that both deaths are murder, begins to look for a killer among the unlucky pair's friends and colleagues. The answer may be buried deep in the past, but Hugo's Sherlock-ian skills serve him well as he hunts a killer. More cerebral than Pryor's earlier cases (The Reluctant Matador, 2015, etc.), but fans will still find plenty of action.

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August 1, 2016

Hugo Marston, chief of security for the American Embassy in Paris, and his CIA pal Tom Green investigate the mysterious death of the head of the American Library, who had recently acquired the papers of Isabella Severin, believed to have been a French spy during World War II. Are there buried secrets in these documents? The sixth series title follows The Reluctant Matador.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2016
Hugo Marston, head of security at the U.S. embassy in Paris, drops by the American Library's book sale to see a signed first edition and finds his friend, library director Paul Rogers, dead in the basement. The investigation, led by Hugo's ally Camille Lerens, reveals no evidence of foul play until Paul's wife is found dead in an apparent suicide. Bruises on her body and a clue buried in Paul's research expose both deaths as murder. Hugo suspects that the murders are related to the library's recent acquisition of national icon Isabelle Severin's secret papers, as speculation about her possible spying for the French Resistance thrives. But first Hugo must determine if the suspicious behavior of the couple's friend Alain Benoit points to a crime of passion. Pryor plays by the rules with this locked-room puzzle, providing well-placed clues for armchair detectives and pulling them together with a few crafty twists. A jauntily paced and solid entry in this popular crime series, known for its exceptional sense of place.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)