Murder in Passy

January 24, 2011
Full of French political intrigue, Black's atmospheric 11th Aimée Leduc investigation (after 2010's Murder in the Palais Royal) finds the Paris PI's world turned upside down with the arrest of her godfather and longtime mentor, Commissaire Morbier, for murder. Worse yet, the victim—Morbier's inamorata, Xavierre d'Eslay—was with Aimée minutes before her death by strangulation. To clear Morbier, Aimée must dig deep as his fellow officers close rank and refuse to cooperate. Helping Aimée are her detective agency partner, René; her cousin, Sebastian; and her former policeman lover, Melac, who may or may not have an agenda of his own during the investigation. Though Xavierre lived a life of privilege in the posh suburb of Passy, Aimée discovers her past is shrouded in secrecy, linked to Basque separatists and terrorist acts. While the characters and their motivations can sometimes be hard to follow, the plot builds to a satisfying conclusion.

Starred review from January 15, 2011

Murder strikes close to home when Aimée Leduc (Murder in Palais Royal, 2009, etc.) finds her godfather charged with a crime passionelle.

"Something's going on with Xavierre," Commissaire Morbier tells his goddaughter. So while he's off in Lyon on a case, Aimée and her partner René Friant crash the wedding rehearsal for Xavierre's daughter at her upscale townhome in Passy. They find the mother of the bride frazzled, and no wonder. Within minutes, Xavierre is lying in the garden dead, leaving her daughter Irati hysterical in the arms of Robbé, her fiancé. Still worse, the police arrest Morbier, clapping him in a cell with Cheb DJ, a violent felon Morbier's locked up many times. While DJ tries to win his release by beating information out of his cellmate, Aimée looks for clues near Place Victor Hugo, starting with the studio of Agustino, a painter who knew fellow Basque Xavierre from their school days in Bayonne. Irati too seems mixed up in the culture wars, as Aimée concludes when she finds a pamphlet from the separatist group Euskadi Action in her mail. Now that the results of the long-awaited Basque referendum are to be announced at the Marmottan Museum, will the nationalists give sabotage a rest? More murders, the kidnapping of a Spanish princess, and a frantic message from Agustino convince Aimée that Xavierre's death has more to do with politics than passion.

The ideal mix of the personal, the political, the puzzling and the Parisian make Aimée's latest a perfect pleasure.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

August 1, 2010

Proprietor of a computer security business in Paris and protagonist of Black's atmospheric series (yes, you can feel the Seine-soaked cobblestones through your feet as your read), smart, tough, and utterly likable Aimee Leduc admits to a penchant for bad boys. Aside from her partner, Rene, the one male constant in her life is her godfather, Morbier, commissaire of police. So when Morbier asks her to check in on his lady friend, Xavierre, who's planning her daughter's wedding and who's seemed distant lately, Aimee agrees. No, Xavierre is not very obliging when Aimee crashes a prewedding party at her elegant Passy mansion. Then Xavierre ends up strangled with her own scarf--and Morbier, implicated in her death, winds up in jail. Aimee immediately starts digging and discovers that Basque-born Xavierre's long-ago connection to the separatist group ETA has returned to haunt her and that a radical ETA offshoot called Euskadi Action has serious plans about some French Basque prisoners and an upcoming referendum. Soon, Aimee needs to rescue not only Morbier but a kidnapped Spanish princess. VERDICT Another fun, absorbing, well-plotted Aimee Leduc mystery, more brisk in the telling than ever; your passport to Paris next spring.--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2011
Theres a lot of framing in Blacks wacky, entertaining novels starring irrepressible Parisian investigator Aim'e Leduc. Last time out (Murder in the Palais Royal, 2010), Aim'e herself was being framed, for the near-murder of her partner, Ren'. This time its Aim'es godfather, Morbier, a copper himself, tapped for the murder of his new girlfriend, a society matron in Paris Basque community. The tightening screws of a frame-up provide the necessary sense of urgency to send Aim'e into high gearcareening around the streets of the city on her scooter, often in a little black dress and high heelsattempting to convince the inconvincible that she is only a couple of hairpin turns away from sorting it all out. This time most of the careening takes place in the insular neighborhood of Passy, where the tight-lipped Basques, keeping mum about the terrorists among them, dont respond well to Aim'es bull-headed brashness. The rest of us will follow Aim'e anywhere, the blinder the alley the better, thrilled to hitch a ride on the back of her scooter.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)