Angélique

French suspense novelist Musso (The Stranger in the Seine) sets this captivating if crowded mystery in Paris during Christmas 2021. Retired police officer Mathias Taillefer wakes up in a hospital after suffering a mild heart attack and finds 17-year-old Louise Collange at his bedside. Knowing that Mathias is a well-regarded investigator, Louise asks him to look into the death of her mother, retired prima ballerina Stella Petrenko. Louise does not believe her mother’s death is an accident or a suicide, as the police suggest. Instead, she thinks it might be linked to a murder in Stella’s apartment building. Musso unfolds the story along three parallel tracks: one follows Mathias and Louise as they spar, investigate, and learn more about the victims and each other; another follows an anonymous killer, offering up psychological justification for their crimes; a third examines the events leading up to Mathias’s early retirement and the tragic love affair that has shaped his life. Everything converges in a finale that serves up jaw-dropping twists, even if it doesn’t quite justify the whiplash of the book’s convoluted structure. Still, Musso’s fans will have a Gallic good time. (Jan.)