The Most Mysterious Bookshop in Paris

Pryor’s lively latest investigation for Hugo Marston (after The French Widow) finds the semiretired head of security at the U.S. embassy in Paris yanked back into the fray. Hugo is making arrangements to open Hugo’s Mystery & Antiquarian Bookshop in Paris’s fashionable Marais district when his superiors call and ask him to investigate a blackmail incident at Eclat de Chocolat, a chocolate factory housed in an 18th-century Catholic convent. Anya Delavigne, the company’s marketing director, has received a threatening note signed by “The Shadow” that promises to reveal her “darkest secret,” though she says she has no idea what that might be. Shortly after Hugo launches his inquiry, one of the company’s employees is killed. Teaming up with his old friend, police lieutenant Camille Lerens, Hugo tries to determine whether the blackmail and the murder are linked, and who’s responsible for each. Series fans will delight at Camille’s return, and Pryor’s depiction of the City of Light is intoxicating. If the investigation itself is somewhat underheated, readers are unlikely to mind. It’s a satisfying confection. Agent: Laura Gross, Laura Gross Literary. (Mar.)