Murder in Saint-Germain

Written by Cara Black

Narrated by Carine Montbertrand

Paris, July 1999: Private investigator Aimee Leduc is walking through Saint-Germain when she is accosted by Suzanne Lesage, a Brigade Criminelle agent on an elite counterterrorism squad. Suzanne has just returned from the former Yugoslavia, where she was hunting down dangerous war criminals for the Hague. Back in Paris, Suzanne is convinced she's being stalked by a ghost-a Serbian warlord she thought she'd killed. She's suffering from PTSD and her boss thinks she's imagining things. She begs Aimee to investigate-is it possible Mirko Vladic could be alive and in Paris with a blood vendetta? Aimee is already working on a huge case, plus she's got an eight-month old baby to take care of. But she can't say no to Suzanne, whom she owes a big favor. Aimee chases the few leads, and all evidence confirms Mirko Vladic is dead. It seems that Suzanne is in fact paranoid, perhaps losing her mind-until Suzanne's team begins to turn up dead in a series of strange, tragic accidents. Are these just coincidences? Or are things not what they seem?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9781501958885

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 Saint-Germain

[lahochstetler · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Aimee Leduc's Paris is a sensory and sensual city. It is full of smells, textures, wine, food, and weather. There's aperitifs and espresso, and not a small amount of international crime and danger. This is the sort of book that makes you wonder what else was going on in Paris when you were a tourist there. This installment in the series brings us to Paris in the midst of a sultry summer, and to the neighborhood of St. Germain. St. Germain is a university district, home of the School of Fine Arts, which features heavily in the plot, as well as the medical school that Aimee attended. Its also where the writers of the Lost Generation smoked, drank, and created masterpieces. It is also here that Aimee undertakes a search for a Bosnian war criminal who was supposed to have died in the Balkans. The hunt will bring Aimee into the realm of traumatized intelligence officers, and will lead to Aimee being wrongly suspected in a murder, on the run from police. At the same time, Aimee is juggling the demands of single parenthood (courtesy her baby, Chloe), and learning more about her long-absent mother. As per usual, Aimee makes a lot of bad and dangerous choices, employs loads of disguises, and winds up narrowly escaping with her life on multiple occasions. Motherhood has made Aimee slightly more subdued in her investigations, but only slightly. This is a fast, exciting read that really enmeshes you in the world of Paris.

[cecilturtle · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Aimée Leduc, private investigator, works on adrenaline which makes for a fast paced, action packed plot full of surprises. It also makes her hasty, stubborn and foolhardy: this brings both funny and cringe-worthy moments. Her colleagues and entourage are all a bit too colourful to be taken seriously, but the overall story works, with well-crafted lessons on Paris's geography and the Ex-Yugoslavia War.Now if only the Black could find an editor to proofread her French...

[mm_jones · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

#17 in the Aimee Leduc, Paris investigator series. Not sure who reads these books, but you might like if the following sentence appeals to you: "Before she could expire from thirst, she stopped at a small Franprix and downed a chilled Badoit". I found the extensive product placement and stilted dialogue a major distraction from the convoluted plot(s). And the "stylish sleuth" is rather inept. One would have to suspend belief to accept that the detective that can't remember to put gas in her scooter or charge her cell phone would be able to recall a catacomb map from memory. First & last one for me.