A Murder in Paris

Blake dives back into the murky depths of the mind for his riveting sophomore thriller (after Anna O). Everything changes for London-based memory specialist Dr. Olivia Finn when she gets an alarming call one morning from Paris police: her 96-year-old grandmother, renowned painter Josephine Benoit, is refusing to leave the lobby of the Hôtel Lutetia after claiming to have committed a murder there in the days after Paris was liberated from the Nazis. She maintains that her real name is Sophie Leclerc, and that she switched identities with her victim. Olivia arrives in Paris and retrieves her grandmother; a few hours later, an apparent home invasion leaves the older woman dead and prompts Olivia to wonder what long-buried grenade the morning’s confession might have set off—and whether she herself may be in danger. Scrambling for answers, Olivia reaches out to her grandmother’s lifelong friend, pioneering but controversial memory expert Louis de Villefort, to determine whether her memory might have been tampered with. Blake weaves a sprawling spiderweb of a plot that spans nearly a century and thrills from start to finish, though some suspension of disbelief is required. With a memorable protagonist, jaw-dropping twists, and provocative questions about the nature of memory, this page-turner is nearly impossible to forget. Agent: Madeleine Milburn, Madeleine Milburn Literary. (Sept.)