cover image Murder on the Quai

Murder on the Quai

Cara Black. Soho Crime, $27.95 (336p) ISBN 978-1-61695-678-3

Set in 1989, bestseller Black’s 16th Aimée Leduc investigation (after 2015’s Murder on the Champs des Mars) is a prequel that tells the intriguing story of Aimée’s debut as a detective. When Aimée’s father, Jean-Claude, travels to Germany on business around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, he leaves Aimée, a first-year medical student who’s struggling with academic failure and her boyfriend leaving her for another woman, temporarily in charge of the family-owned detective agency in Paris. Elise Pelletier, who claims to be Jean-Claude’s second cousin, brings Aimée her first case. Elise wants to find the woman whose name and phone number were on a matchbook in the pocket of her dead father, Bruno, who was discovered tied and bound with a bullet in his head under the Pont des Invalides. As Aimée investigates, she becomes enmeshed in the murky history of the murder of four German soldiers in Vichy, France, during WWII. Series fans will enjoy learning more about Aimée’s mysterious past. [em]Agent: Katherine Fausset, Curtis Brown. (June) [/em]