In the Shadows of Paris: A Victor Legris Mystery
Claude Izner, trans. from the French by Lorenza Garcia. Minotaur, $25.99 (320p) ISBN 978-0-312-66216-5
An especially crafty solution distinguishes the fifth belle epoque whodunit from the two sisters using the Izner pseudonym (after 2011’s The Assassin in the Marais). After a daring daytime robbery of a jewelry store, carried out with the unwitting assistance of a gendarme, Paris is hit by a violent crime wave. Two murders—one of the founder of Paris’s natural history museum, the other of a painter of enamels—attract the attention of bookseller Victor Legris. His curiosity becomes more than casual after a bookbinder friend, Pierre Andresy, perishes in a fire in his store amid evidence that arson was involved. Bizarrely, a death notice in the paper for Andresy was placed before his death and contains language similar to that on a note found on the painter’s corpse. Not many readers will identify the murderer before Legris, whose quirky and endearing character is even more developed than in previous books. (Sept.)
Details
Reviewed on: 07/16/2012
Genre: Fiction
Open Ebook - 336 pages - 978-1-250-01210-4
Paperback - 320 pages - 978-1-250-03131-0