Murder in Belleville

A casual but enjoyable spin through the richly mixed culture of Parisian streets and comically bureaucratic French institutions. The reader rides on the back of the moped of an unfortunately cliched heroine whose regular gig as a computer systems security analyst promises an interesting high-tech

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dimension but too often, for the tech-savvy reader, serves up implausible hand waving and applied phlebotinum. What kept me turning the pages were the lively descriptions of Paris and the weaving of its history and unique flavor into the plot. But the protagonist is so close in every way but geography to those of other mystery series (e.g., Evanovich's or Grafton's spunky, single female detective with a troubled childhood, poor eating habits, and commitment issues, and who, propelled by her own pluck, tends to turn herself into the Designated Victim) that it was hard not to compare them at every chapter and have Cara Black come out the lesser writer. This one is for fans of French culture, light mysteries, and nervy women who pick locks, lose the tailing car, and can't decide if they prefer sleeping alone or not.

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First Line: Aimée Leduc's cell phone rang, startling her, as she drove under the leafy poplars tenting the road to Paris.

The phone call is from the sister of Aimée's friend Martine. Anaïs is the self-absorbed wife of a government minister. Crying and frightened, she insists that Aimée meet her

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on a street in the tough neighborhood of Belleville. Belleville, once the home of internationally famous singer Édith Piaf, is now better known for its high concentration of Arab immigrants.

Aimée arrives at the address, and she and Anaïs narrowly escape a car bombing which kills the former mistress of Anaïs's husband. Although the explosion has brought back all the horror of her own father's death, Aimée reluctantly agrees to try to find out why this particular woman would have been the target of a bomb.

The further she digs, the more unsettling are the clues she finds. The dead woman had an alias, and it appears that she led a double life. In one, she was the mistress of a government minister, in the other, she was right in the middle of a situation involving a secret North African radical group. As Aimée continues her investigation, she attracts the notice of people who will stop at nothing to end her snooping, but her findings-- that there is a dark side to immigrant politics that the government doesn't want known-- are too important to ignore.

Author Cara Black is sending me on a tour of Paris, France, one book-- and one neighborhood-- at a time. It is a tour that I am fast learning to savor. A little bit of historical background, a little architecture... add interesting local characters, an intriguing puzzle, and a stylish private eye who doesn't know when to quit, and I'm settled in for the evening.

I found the politically charged theme of immigration to be absorbing, and the more crime fiction I read that's set outside the United States, the more I learn that this is also a problem in many parts of the world. (If you read mysteries set outside the US, you also learn other countries' equivalents of dialing 911 and other bits of trivia such as the fact that "Jane Does" are called "Yvette" in France.)

Aimée is just the sort of strong yet vulnerable character that I like to follow in a series, and the action-filled finale of Murder in Belleville found me starting to chew a fingernail more than once. The only thing in the entire book that bothered me was Aimée's on-again-off-again lover, Yves, whom I found distracting. Fortunately his scenes are few, so he was a minor annoyance.

Do you love France? Do you love reading books set in other countries? Do you love strong-yet-flawed main characters? Do you love carefully crafted mysteries? If you said yes to any of these questions, I would suggest you get your hands on a book written by Cara Black so you can become acquainted with Aimée Leduc!

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Private Investigator Aimée Leduc is asked to help the sister of her friend, who suspects her husband of having an affair. The meeting takes place in an unusual setting for a powerful minister’s wife; Bellevillle is a working class neighborhood that is home to many Algerian immigrants. Aimée

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arrives just in time to witness a car bombing and barely gets the woman out and back to her husband’s mansion. But the woman wants to hire Leduc to investigate the car bombing, and she is quickly embroiled in a situation that has international ramifications.

This is the second book in the series, and I find that I like the premise of the series, better than I like the books so far. Aimée Leduc is a strong, intelligent, capable woman who doesn’t rely on a convenient strong man to help her (most of the time). I like her partner, Rene, a dwarf with a gift for computer science and surveillance, and I wish Black would give him more to do in the books. I also really enjoy learning about the various neighborhoods of Paris – the chic, and not-so-chic.

But Black seems to get lost in her intricate plots. There are so many threads to follow, so many suspects, so many different dangerous situations, and somehow they don’t really mesh well. Still, I see promise. This second book was a bit better than the first (though I still rate it only 2.5*), and I’d be willing to read another.

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This is the second in a series about Aimee Leduc, a young French woman who works as a private investigator and computer security specialist in Paris. I read the first one and felt disappointed but decided to persist. The human characters, including the heroine, remain shallow, but as you have

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probably guessed, the city is the subject. Black brings to the city to life, not by having Aimee interact with tourist attractions, but instead having her conduct interviews with eccentrics in crummy apartments and running for her life through alleys and courtyards and trying to get to the subway without being seen.
Black titles her mysteries after a different section of Paris. Belleville, based on her description, is a former working-class district now overrun by immigrants from France’s former colonies in North and West Africa. The immigrants, as victims and criminals and political hot potatoes, are integral to a plot that is convincing, interesting, and exciting in places. Worst fault: having the book end with a physical confrontation between Aimee and a strong assassin, the heroine winning by a fluke. I would have preferred a low key ending with her winning by her considerable wiles. I found this an improvement on the first and will continue reading the series.

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Cara Black’s second Aimée Leduc novel continues from the first, leading fashionably chic protagonist Aimée into the dark streets of downtrodden Belleville, aiming to meet with her good friend, wife of a French Minister. Hauntingly evocative of time, place and politics, the story combines

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European terrorism, colonial misdemeanors, and financial and political greed into a tale of danger, mystery and suspense. The novel starts and ends with fast dramatic action, but slows for introspection, investigation and intrigue in the middle—with touches of sheer terror interspersed. The storyline is scarily relevant to the present day, proving there’s nothing new under the French or American suns. And Aimée continues to be a complex protagonist, resourceful, foolish, passionate and loyal to the end. Together with great side characters—especially Renée—she helps the helpless, loves loyally, and longs to learn what happened to her father. A slow, complex and rewarding read.

Disclosure: I got several of these on a deal and look forward to reading more.

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Exciting, compellling mystery with lots of political overtones. Excellent read.

When Martine asks for help to protect her sister, Aimee heads to the Belleville area only to witness a car explosion, but she is able to help Martine's sister, Anais, escape. However, the ensuing investigation into the young woman who died leads to political tensions with the sans-papiers who are

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on a hunger strike and taking sanctuary in a church as well as international government deals and possible genocide. As Aimee seeks to stay ahead of various groups in conflict, she finds herself in increasing danger.

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