{"id":1192,"date":"2013-09-05T09:43:31","date_gmt":"2013-09-05T16:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=1192"},"modified":"2013-09-05T09:44:52","modified_gmt":"2013-09-05T16:44:52","slug":"mystery-in-paris-in-fine-fashion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/?p=1192","title":{"rendered":"Mystery in Paris, in fine fashion"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Bob Moyer isn\u2019t traveling in physical terms, he\u2019s traveling through his reading. Here, he visits Paris by way of a charming mystery.<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer<\/p>\n

MURDER BELOW MONTPARNASSE. By Cara Black. SOHO Crime. 336 pages. $25.95.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Cara Black has carved a comfortable niche out of the soft-boiled genre.\u00a0She rambles around Paris, concocting mysteries that she derives from the historical context and culture of each arrondissement, <\/em>as Paris neighborhoods are called.\u00a0In this, the 13th mystery in the series, Black mines the history of Montparnasse in the 1920s and \u201930s as a milieu of poverty-stricken artists and political exiles.\u00a0As one artist said, poverty was a state to be desired; caf\u00e9s and restaurants were replete with art traded for\u00a0food.<\/p>\n

The crimes committed in contemporary Montparnasse center on a painting possibly done by a then-poor artist, Modigliani, of a then-unknown exile, Lenin. Now, the probably priceless painting brings out a passel of crimes \u2013 theft, fraud, murder \u2013 and Black\u2019s protagonist, Aimee Leduc.\u00a0 She\u2019s the owner of Leduc Detective, and a master at\u00a0solving the crimes in 12 previous arrondissements<\/em>. There is one crime, however, that she\u00a0cannot tolerate, nor solve \u2013 a fashion faux pas.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201c \u2018Brown\u2014the new black?\u2019 \u201d she comments about a young woman all in brown, \u201c\u2026which only highlighted her already mouse-like appearance.\u201d\u00a0 Aimee wouldn\u2019t be caught dead \u2013 literally \u2013 wearing the wrong outfit.\u00a0 Without a hitch in the narrative, Aimee slips into black for a stakeout, then into a little leather for a visit to a lesbian bar. She\u2019s as likely to worry about a lack of mousse <\/em>in her hair as she is about a lack of clues.<\/p>\n

Fortunately for the reader, her attention to haute couture <\/em>doesn\u2019t hamper the action, as Aimee careens down narrow side streets after clues.<\/p>\n

Some of those clues lead down a very personal passageway to a very personal crime against Aimee \u2013 her mother\u2019s desertion.\u00a0On Interpol\u2019s most-wanted list for a score of years, her mother may be behind the murders.\u00a0The fast-paced chase for the painting, coupled with complications in her love life and the loss of her business partner, leads to a surprise confrontation with her mother, and a surprise denouement<\/em> that promises to come to fruition in another arrondissement <\/em>in the near future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Bob Moyer isn\u2019t traveling in physical terms, he\u2019s traveling through his reading. Here, he visits Paris by way of a charming mystery. Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer MURDER BELOW MONTPARNASSE. By Cara Black. SOHO Crime. 336 pages. $25.95. Cara Black has carved a comfortable niche out of the soft-boiled genre.\u00a0She rambles around Paris, concocting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[482,27],"class_list":["post-1192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mysteries","tag-cara-black","tag-mystery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1192"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1195,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1192\/revisions\/1195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lindabrinson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}