Murder in the Rue de Paradis

Written by Cara Black

Narrated by Carine Montbertrand

Aimée Leduc seems to be having a streak of good luck. First, she secures a lucrative computer security contract for her Paris detective agency. Then her exboyfriend Yves, the gorgeous bad-boy investigative journalist, reappears in her life. He insists he’s back in Paris indefinitely—and wants to make the ultimate commitment. He proposes to her that very night, and Aimée can’t help but say yes.

When she wakes up in the morning, though, Yves is gone, and without even leaving a note. Aimée is irate until she learns the awful truth: Yves was murdered early that morning. Heartbroken and convinced the Brigade Criminelle are not following the right leads, Aimée pursues the mystery behind Yves’s murder. Yves was killed trying to help a cause he believed in. Her own life may be on the line, but Aimée won’t let him die in vain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 26, 2008
• ISBN: 9781436183970

Cara Black

Cara Black is the author of nineteen books in the New York Times bestselling Aimée Leduc series. She has received multiple nominations for the Anthony and Macavity Awards, and her books have been translated into German, Norwegian, Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian, and Hebrew. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and son. She can be found tweeting at @carablack.

Reviews for Murder in the Rue de Paradis

[coach_of_alva · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Aimee Leduc hunts her fiancee's murderer despite being warned off by French security services. She gets her villain after preventing an assassination and a bombing and does not let a dislocated shoulder or her godfather's attempt to babysit her slow her down. If the story as a whole is more a thriller than a mystery, Aimee does an admirable job of sleuthing, even if a reader can guess the murderer halfway through the book. A superior entry in this series.

[antt-4 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Black get Paris and her chic parisienne spot on.

[bale_5 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Based on reviews of her work, I thought Cara Black would write a more sophisticated murder mystery. She does make a few -somewhat- profound cultural observations, but they are second to the novel's intent. An "okay" read.

[ijustgetbored · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This particular Aimee Leduc perhaps bites off a little more than it can chew. The Leduc novels in general embrace a vibrant and multicultural Paris, which is generally one thing that makes them enjoyable to read. In this one, though, Black's fictional world spins away from her a little bit as the definition of "who the bad guys are" becomes larger and more complex with each passing page. No spoilers, but by the end of the novel the "bad guy" defininition has become so complex that it's hard to relate the concept of a single person on a jihad working for such a complex organization: the individual has become buried in the vastly political.

The main thread of the murder mystery is the murder of Aimee's on-and-off love-- or fling-- Yves Robert. But his murder really becomes an excuse to talk about larger political issues; it's almost as if Black had Yves show up in the first 10 pages only in order to get killed so that she could talk about the sociopolitical issues that interested her more. Yves's death ends up getting sidelined a lot, which detracts from the overall "murder mystery" feel of the novel. Characters like Rene, Aimee's work partner, also only seem to pop up as plot conviences, again in service of the sociopolitical message of the novel (the whole tangent about their possibly buying new office real estate, for instance: does that serve any purpose but to eventually lead to contact with the assassian?).

Black's mysteries are always fun and light in the sense that they're drenched in Paris culture, unlikely but enjoyable scenarios involving costumes and flea market finds (this one involves a feather boa, honest), and high-speed chases. For pure entertainment value, you can't discount them. This one just seems to lose some of the entertainment value behind overly dense sociopolitical rhetoric (bear in mind that that's socialpolitical rhetoric, circa 1995, as per the novel's time period setting).