The Case of the Black Pearl: A Patrick de Courvoisier Mystery

This mildly diverting series opener from Anderson (Picture Her Dead and seven other Rhona MacLeod crime novels) introduces Patrick de Courvoisier, an Englishman with a murky past who lives aboard a converted gunboat in the French resort town of Cannes, where he offers his services as a low-key, laid-back “fixer.” When Patrick agrees to look for Camille Ager’s missing sister, actress Angele Valette, who vanished along with a valuable black pearl, he unwittingly steps back into the shadows of his former mysterious career, into a world populated by temptresses and well-connected Russian mobsters, as well as by liars and crooked cops. The stakes become deadly with Patrick’s discovery of a beautiful woman drowned in the bathtub on his boat. Anderson uses her setting with a certain amount of skill, but readers should be prepared for lackluster language and stock characters. [em](July) [/em]