Number 7, Rue Jacob: A Maggie MacGowen Mystery

In Edgar-winner Hornsby’s enjoyable 11th Maggie MacGowen mystery (after 2016’s Disturbing the Dark), a puzzling message sends the investigative filmmaker from her home in Paris to Venice, where she finds her fiancé, French businessman and Eurozone official Jean-Paul Bernard, recovering from an attempt on his life. As the couple travel through Italy, pursued by a pair of mercenary toughs, they learn someone has offered a reward for information on their whereabouts, and teenage hackers are tracking them closely. After they return to Paris, they realize the pursuit is connected to valuable Russian books found in the basement of a building that MacGowen inherited from her late mother. Despite uneven pacing and anticlimactic suspense—the villains are more bumbling than menacing—Hornsby weaves an engrossing story about bibliophiles, Russian history, and family intrigues. Series aficionados and fans of sophisticated, cultured mysteries in the vein of Donna Leon should be satisfied. (Apr.)