The City of Blood: A Paris Homicide Mystery

In Molay’s accomplished third Paris Homicide mystery (after 2014’s Crossing the Line), Nico Sirsky, the “head of France’s legendary criminal investigation division,” investigates an unusual murder. In the 1980s, “new realist” artist Samuel Cassian organized a banquet attended by 120 people, including artists, art critics, filmmakers, museum directors, and politicians. When the site of the buried banquet is unearthed 30 years later as an art event in Paris’s Parc de la Villette, the excavators find skeletal remains. The victim is identified as Cassian’s 22-year-old son, who had been a promising artist himself and who disappeared a week after the banquet. Unravelling the past proves to be difficult but takes on urgency when it appears the body’s discovery has inspired a new killing. At the end, Cassian likens Nico to Georges Simenon’s great detective: “Inspector Maigret can sleep soundly. He has a worthy successor.” Many readers will agree. (Jan.)