Customer Reviews

Crime Fraiche (Capucine Culinary Mysteries)

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In Paris, Police Judicaire Commissaire Capucine LeTellier is diligently working with a team trying to catch the criminal La Belle. She allows herself, after feigning illness, to go to her rescuer's house and steals some valuables while there. No one knows what she looks like or have a clue how to find her, which leads to the media wanting Capucine's tete. Capucine's Uncle Aymerie invites her to his Chateau Maulevrier in Normandy ending a two year estrangement. She and her overweight food critic spouse Alexandre accept.

At a dinner party, Monsieur Vienneau talks about the shooting two weeks ago of a cattle ranch manger. When a man is found dead after a steak house is demolished, Capucine's instincts are engaged. During another hunt a third person is killed. The Commissaire investigates the string of deadly accidents while also working the La Belle case in Paris.

Armchair travelers get a taste of Paris and a small town in Normandy as Alexander Campion paints a picturesque background. The author creates quirky characters with flaws that make them seem real. The two subplots are cleverly devised and the flow back and forth between them is smooth as the cop goes after the killer and the thief in a super French police procedural.

Harriet Klausner

This book is a delightful adventure for both mystery readers and readers of culinary tales. The lovely head of the Paris Police Department, Commissaire Capucine Le Tellier, starts off on a hunting trip along with her husband, Alexandre, who is senior food critic for Le Monde - a very popular Paris

newspaper. Capucine and Alexandre are looking forward to having a tranquil trip to the French countryside that will be all about picnics, dinners, and many glasses of French wine. But, before the two arrive at a sixteenth-century chateau that is owned by one of Capucine's relatives, the whole idea of a pleasant vacation in the beauty of the French countryside is absolutely ruined by a fatal hunting accident. And, oddly enough, the longer the couple dwells in the chateau, the more accidents occur.

Various shootings - supposedly more hunting accidents - are soon painfully obvious that they are not just caused by a slip of the trigger finger. But the local police are not willing to solve this intriguing, serious murder spree, which puts Capucine on the case!

Now, she is completely willing to work on them in order to solve these numerous deaths, but she soon falls into a tremendously `sticky' situation when she heads to a famous cattle ranch. The issues soon rise well beyond small town law enforcement, as well as the fights that ensue over some of France's most beloved cooking traditions.

Readers who would love to travel will absolutely love this novel. A glimmer of Paris, along with the fabulous scenery of Normandy, fill the pages, as well as some really wonderful descriptions of the fantastic food of the French countryside.

Not surprising, this is yet another terrific story by Alexandre Campion, who started his career in New York and ended up in Paris as a restaurant critic, who then flung himself into the mystery world! As far as food is concerned, this is another succulent meal for readers everywhere!