If you like your mysteries set in European locales, here’s a Parisian detective series that is sure to please. Aimée Leduc is a private eye, born of a French career detective and an absentee American mother (brief hints of angst over this in this installment). She’s appeared in about ten adventures, always set in iconic Parisian neighborhoods : Murder in the Marais, Murder in the Bastille, Murder in Montmartre, and Murder in the Latin Quarter , to name a few. In Murder in Passy (Paris’s tony XVIe arrondissement), Aimée finds herself mixed up in a murderous intrigue involving the French arm of the Basque nationalist movement. The final chase involves the kidnapping of a Spanish princess, a secret torture chamber used by the Gestapo in WWII, and a rooftop escape. The author sprinkles enough French words into the dialogue to either annoy you or make you feel your French 101 was not for nothing— Zut alors! très chic, c’est parfait, désolé, c’est tout! Oh, and Aimée’s frequent stop...
Sometimes a dose of nonfiction that reads like a novel is just the reading fix I need, and Erik Larson does not disappoint. After the Titanic, the sinking of the Lusitania is probably the most catastrophic civilian maritime disaster of the 20th century, and there are stories to tell from both ends of the torpedo. Larson profiles some of the passengers, the crew of the German submarine that sank the ship, provides insight into the ongoing war and the United States’ reluctance to become involved, the secret intelligence gathering efforts of the Brits, and even shines a light into Woodrow Wilson’s romantic persona as he courts a woman he falls head over heels in love with after the death of his first wife. Of course the tragic end of the luxury liner is the apex of the narrative. The ship sank in 18 minutes and the loss of life was catastrophic. A fascinating story, well told.
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