Murder in Montparnasse

August 2, 1999
Taking a break from his Benny Cooperman mysteries, Engel (Getting Away with Murder) presents a Parisian mystery involving cafes, romance, murder and lots of wine. In the fall of 1925, Canadian journalist Mike Ward arrives in the City of Light in search of the literary life. Soon he meets Jason Waddington, an expat American writer, and is lured into his circle of fashionable authors, painters, editors and socialites. Among them is the breathtaking Laure Duclos, a "teacher of French"; despite warnings from his friends that "she's poison," Ward is hooked after one look. Their affair is short-lived, however, since Laure is soon murdered, apparently by the notorious Jack de Paris, a serial killer with a penchant for stabbing beautiful women. Ward suspects someone has used Jack as cover to do away with Laure, however, and determines to find the real murderer. Meanwhile, cafe gossip insinuates that Waddington's current manuscript is a character-defaming expos about his friends. Engel relies heavily on dialogue to push forward his plot, with plenty of intoxicated cafe talk thrown in, and his characters should please fans of the era: Waddington bears a pointed resemblance to Hemingway, and many other players are loosely based on notable writers or their famous fictional creations. Engel's descriptions of Paris in the '20s are charming, adding to the fun of the gambol he provides through the Left Bank and its denizens. Agent, Beverly Slopen.

August 1, 1999
Engel, well known for his Benny Cooperman series, here tries his hand at historical fiction. Canadian Michael Ward, a recent arrival in 1925 Paris, works for a news service agency, translating from French to English. He pals around with an expatriate American couple and their friends, but the threat of a serial murderer, known as the "Jack of Paris," spreads a pall over their historic neighborhood. When one of their group is killed, Michael wonders whether there might be some connection to the expatriate's disturbing roman clef. Chilling prose, infused with ambient vitality, historic tidbits, and exotic Paris; highly recommended.

Copyright 1999 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 1999
The Lost Generation has never been quite so Found. Prompted perhaps by the Hemingway centenary, the whole Montparnasse gang has been popping up as fictional characters in all variety of stories, particularly mysteries. Following Walter Satterthwait's enjoyable frolic, "Masquerade", in which Hemingway, Stein, and others decorated a period mystery, comes veteran genre author Engel's variation on the theme. Upping the ante on Satterthwait, Engel combines the usual real-life Lost Generation crew with characters from "The Sun Also Rises" (Lady Brett, Robert Cohn, et al.) and mixes in a juicy plot involving a Parisian version of Jack the Ripper (Jack de Paris) and a hypothetical answer to the real question of what happened to Hemingway's lost manuscripts. Most of the real-life characters have different names, but anyone who passed Am Lit 101 should have little trouble identifying the principals. It's all a bit silly but certainly good fun, and if the nominal hero of the tale, "Toronto Star" correspondent Michael Ward, is so naive-yet-willing-to-learn it makes your teeth hurt, we're more than happy to endure the pain for a chance to share a Pernod with old friends. ((Reviewed July 1999))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1999, American Library Association.)