Murder in Montmartre: An Aimee Leduc Investigation [Paperback]

Cara Black (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Soho Press (2006)
• ASIN: B001N2JR1C
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)

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

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Evocative story of Paris, May 29, 2006

By 

booksforabuck "BooksForABuck" (Long Beach, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Murder in Montmartre (Aimee Leduc Investigations, No. 6) (Hardcover)

Private Investigator Aimee Leduc is at her most sensitive right after she's dumped by her boyfriend, so she takes it hard when a childhood friend, cop Laure, is accused of murdering her partner. Aimee knows Laure would never have killed the man she viewed as her mentor, but the police have their suspect and Laure is comotose and unable to defend herself. It's up to Aimee to do the job.

Aimee's investigation quickly takes her out of the everyday world of Paris into a seamy underworld of prostitutes, underemployed musicians living rough, and Corsican terrorists. It is clear to Aimee that the murder being pinned on Laure is somehow connected to the Corsicans, but the most likely suspect turns out to be the musician who restarts Aimee's bruised libido.

Always in the background is the fear of police corruption--a corruption that destroyed Aimee's father and that continues to haunt much of the Paris police department. What secrets did Laure hide? Could Aimee's father have been, after all, involved with some underhanded scheme?

Author Cara Black continues her Aimee Leduc series with an intriguing tale set in a world where ancient vendetta coexists with modern terrorism, and where the spirit of Tolouse Lautrec haunts the streets of Montmartre, the section of Paris he profiled--and a section of Paris that remains distinct from the rest of the city.

There were times when Aimee's investigation seemed a bit improbable (her invasion of the police computer system seemed particularly far-fetched), but Black's mystery is more of an impressionistic painting than a hard-edged photograph. If you're interested in Paris and in reading an author who treats that city as a dominant character, you won't want to miss MURDER IN MONTMARTRE

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Amy LeDuc's best case, December 2, 2006

By 

Blue in Washington "Barry Ballow" (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: Murder in Montmartre (Aimee Leduc Investigations, No. 6) (Hardcover)

I'm a great fan of Cara Black's "Murder in..." series, but I found myself in a bad neighborhood with this book in more ways than one. The story line revolves around the suspected terrorist activities of Corsican nationalists (or are they gangsters?) and detective Amy LeDuc's related attempts to clear a childhood friend of a murder charge. The descriptions of Paris streets, cafes, restaurants and other sites are as interesting as ever, but the book's story line is contrived and uneven. The story opens with a hardly credible, but helpful-for-the-scenario, breakup of LeDuc and her doctor boyfriend. The book ends with LeDuc in the arms of another BF, whom she barely knows and for whom readers have had scant information about from the body of the story. There are other problems with character development here as well--LeDuc's partner, Rene, is given unusually short shrift (what's up with the new girlfriend?) and the childhood friend that LeDuc is trying assist is written into a convenient coma-like silence without much explanation to the reader.
The main point here is that Cara Black has done much better with other stories in this series. If you are considering this book, I believe that you would do better to start with "Murder in the Bastille" or "Murder in the Marais."

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Watch out for the holes under Sacre-Coeur in Montmartre, October 19, 2006

By 

Grey Wolffe "Zeb Kantrowitz" (North Waltham, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Murder in Montmartre (Aimee Leduc Investigations, No. 6) (Hardcover)

It's January 1995, and Aimee is once again involved in a murder mystery that leads her again to secrets concerning her father's death. With the Church of the Sacred Heart (Sacre-Coeur), the neighborhood of the Mound of Martyrs (Montmartre), and the stone quarry caverns below as background, Aimee tries to prove that her childhood friend (Laure) did not kill her policemen partner (yes, her friend is a flic). Laure's father was Aimee's father's partner before he left the force.

Her new friend, Guy the Doctor, has split and gone to the Sudan with Doctors Sans Frontiers (Doctors without Borders). An old friend, who Aimee has been looking for for years (Jaubert), and was part of her father's police academy group along with Morbier, turns up in a spot she least expects.

As always, our heroine, Aimee, is not only resourceful but always stylish (a true fashionista) as she snoops out the bad guys. Somehow, this time she manages to stay off her scooter and therefore is kept from running into anything or anyone.

The plotline involving some fake Corsican Separatists, who are busy selling the guns (of eastern european make) that were the basis for the case her father had been working on at the time of his death, help Aimee to bring some nagging problems from that time to closure. The rest of the plot is there for Aimee to have something to do until the more important personal issues are resolved.