The Roma Plot

The original edition of this earnest novel (following The Kashmir Trap) in screenwriter Bolduc’s series featuring professional con man Max O’Brien won an Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Book in French. Max travels to Bucharest looking for his good friend and former colleague, Kevin Dandurand, who has been accused of burning down a building and killing the 23 Roma people living there. Max teams up with Kevin’s half-sister Josée, a lawyer in Paris, to uncover the truth about the fire and prove Kevin’s innocence. Their quest leads them to Emil Rosca, a Roma man who has “been caught in nearly every storm of the twentieth century,” and his descendants. As Max and Josée try to discover how his story is entwined with Kevin’s, Bolduc delves into the history of the Roma people from the concentration camps of WWII up to 2007, when this story takes place. It’s not the kind of lively caper readers might expect from a con man protagonist, but the book will appeal to readers who like to have their history lessons wrapped in a good yarn. (Nov.)