Murder in Belleville (Aimee Leduc Investigations, No. 2) [Hardcover]

Cara Black (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2000

Tension runs high in this working-class neighborhood as a hunger strike to protest strict immigration laws escalates among the Algerian immigrants. Aimée barely escapes death in a car bombing in this tale of terrorism and greed in the shadows of Paris.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

April in Paris, 1994, is hardly the stuff of song: forget lilacs and lights twinkling along the Seine and think riots and firebombings. Private investigator Aimée Leduc (Murder in the Marais) specializes in corporate security, but when Anaïs, an old friend and wife of an interior minister, sends her a terrified SOS from Belleville, an immigrants' quartier, the racial violence festering in the city explodes on a very personal level. Anaïs had intended to confront Sylvie, her husband's mistress, but when a car bomb fueled by Algerian plastique takes Sylvie's life, Anaïs begs Aimée to unravel the tangled threads that led to her death.

Aimée's investigations take her into the heart of the unrest surrounding the political status of illegal Algerian immigrants, or sans-papiers. What was the connection between Sylvie (also known as Eugénie, a pied-noir, or Algerian-born French citizen) and Mustafa Hamid, charismatic leader of the Alliance Fédération Libération, a humanitarian mission bent on stopping the forced repatriation of North African Magrébhins? Was Anaïs' husband being blackmailed by a radical faction of the AFL?

The jam-packed plot is occasionally hard to follow (and the intermittent presence of Yves, Aimée's fickle lover, is downright distracting), but Black's Paris, at times grimly threatening, is also wondrously vibrant:

She wondered how Sylvie/Eugénie fit into the melange that swelled the boulevard: the Tunisian Jewish bakery where a line formed while old women who ran the nearby hammam conversed with one and all from their curbside café tables, the occasional rollerblader weaving in and out of the crowd, the Asian men unloading garments from their sliding-door Renault vans, the Syrian butchers with their white coats stained bloody pink, the tall, ebony Senegalese man in a flowing white tunic, prayer shawl, and blue jogging shoes with a sport bag filled with date branches, a well-coiffed French matron tugging a wheeled shopping cart, a short, one-eyed Arabe man who hawked shopping bags hanging from his arms, and the watchful men in front of the Abou Bakr Mosque near the Métro.

Who needs lilacs when you have Paris in all of its confounding, confusing splendor? Francophiles and mystery fans alike will be waiting anxiously for Aimée's next outing. --Kelly Flynn

From Publishers Weekly

After a first-class debut in 1999's Anthony-nominated Murder in the Marais, sassy detective Aim?e Leduc returns, offering an intriguing glimpse of Paris's gruff Belleville district, known for its high concentration of Arab immigrants. The suspense begins immediately with Aim?e receiving a puzzling, urgent call from her friend Ana?s. On arriving at their meeting spot, Aim?e witnesses a car bombingAand soon learns that the bombing's victim was the mistress of Ana?s's government minister husband, Philippe. By questioning locals, she discovers that the dead woman, Sophie, had an alias, Eug?nie Grandet (not to be confused with Balzac's woeful character), and lived what looked like a dual life. Sophie's liaison with Philippe suggested elegance and exclusivity, but her life as Eug?nie placed her in the middle of a tumultuous drama involving a secretive North African radical group. Some of Black's strongest writing is in her descriptions of Belleville's heady atmosphere. As Aim?e searches deeper for clues, she attracts the attention of ruthless people who would rather she didn't snoop, while her findings reveal a dark side to immigrant politics that Philippe and the rest of the French government would prefer she left alone. But Aim?e, never one to take non for an answer, smartly hones in to pull off a thrilling finale that nicely exhibits the author's creative skills.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 341 pages
• Publisher: Soho Press (October 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569472114
• ISBN-13: 978-1569472118
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #936,906 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Cara Black lives in Noe Valley with her bookseller husband, Jun, owner of Foto-Graphix Books, and her son, Tate. She's a San Francisco Library Laureate, Macavity and three time Anthony award-nominee for her series, Aimée Leduc Investigations, set in Paris

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good but not great, January 16, 2001

By 

Charlotte Vale-Allen (CT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Murder in Belleville (Aimee Leduc Investigations, No. 2) (Hardcover)

I loved Murder in the Marais. That said, while I enjoyed Cara Black's new, second book featuring Aimee Leduc, I didn't love it. Certainly, it rolls along at a good clip. But my primary problem, aside from a too-large cast of characters, was a fair absence of emotion on Aimee's part about the things that happen to some of the characters. Aimee's feelings in this tale seem to be focused primarily on herself, and, as a result, there's an absence of impact on the reader when terrible things happen. There are some fine moments, particularly one scene involving a cellphone conversation with the four-year-old daughter of Aimee's "employer." But this is a story about serious events and the lack of the heroine's feelings for the people involved in these events does a disservice to the overall narrative.

It is none the less an entertaining, if somewhat difficult, book and I would recommend that newcomers to Black's work read Murder In the Marais first. She manages to set the Paris scene wonderfully well; its smells, its sights, the feel of the place. And for that alone I give the author high marks.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Tedious, implausible, and wooden, July 14, 2006

By 

Richard Hussong (Groton, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Murder in Belleville (Aimee Leduc Investigations, No. 2) (Paperback)

I forced myself to finish this book, though it was touch and go in several places, just so I could feel able to review it fairly. It seems I liked it even less than reviewer Ms. Trieste "CF", below, but I am in general agreement with her points. There are just so many things wrong with this book that even the grating "famous names" don't really stand out for me. Let's see, where to begin: the naive political ranting, the unspeakable dialogue, the corny love interest, the wholly implausible technology, the absurd coincidences, the distractingly disjointed structure, the proliferation of minor characters, the talky explanations of the detective's thought processes, the total incompetence and corruption of the police - I can't go on; it's hackneyed and poorly written, and that's all there is to it.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Mixed feelings, August 1, 2004

By 

Ms. Trieste "CF" (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Murder in Belleville (Aimee Leduc Investigations, No. 2) (Paperback)

I wanted to like Cara Black's books. I really did. I love Paris, I love mysteries, and these sounded perfect. I made a big mistake and bought four of her books in one swoop, basing my purchase on reviews. I read the first while in Paris, and in a good enough mood. Now I'm back home, reading the second, and thinking "Uh oh..."
I do love revisiting the city of my dreams, but not with cliched gumshoe Aimee or her creator. First of all, the writing is disjointed and confusing. She chops up events randomly, introduces too many extraneous characters without giving them any buildup or grounding in the story (so you end up thinking "who the hell cares about this person. In fact, who is this person?"). Second, she annoyingly gives many characters "real life" names. I kept thinking "Aren't any of the other characters at any point going to say 'Her name is Eugenie Grandet, like the Balzac character?" or "Martine Sitbon, like the designer?"...but they never do. Stop it, Ms. Black! There are many good fictitious names to chose from and as a writer you should be creative enough to pluck some from thin air, and not the pages of the classics or fashion magazines.
I might read the next installment, because
a) I purchased the dang thing and
b) hope springs eternal
but if I start seeing any more second-rate Philip Marlowe dialog and nonsensical situations, I'm putting them right back out on Amazon.