cover image Paris to Die For

Paris to Die For

Maxine Kenneth. Grand Central, $13.99 trade paper (368p) ISBN 978-0-446-56741-1

For the first in a light espionage series, the pseudonymous Kenneth (the writing team of Maxine Schnall and Kenneth Salikof) have used a reference in a letter Jacqueline Bouvier once wrote as the foundation for an alternate reality that puts Jackie to work for the CIA as an undercover agent. In 1951, family friend Allen Dulles taps Jackie to travel to Paris to help persuade a potential Russian defector to work for the U.S. She's soon busy escaping a relentless assassin, who, conveniently, fails to do her in when he has ample opportunity. Despite splashes of wry cleverness ("Jacqueline Lee Bouvier wasn't exactly dressed for discovering a corpse"), the authors choose to depict Jackie as something of an airhead, who, for example, neglects to take the lens cap off her camera before shooting pictures. Cameos by celebrities of the day, from Audrey Hepburn to Fran%C3%A7ois Truffaut, will charm some, but others will have trouble with the plot's leaps of logic. (July)