Carnival

Set in 1943, Janes’s cleverly structured 15th mystery featuring the French Sûreté’s Jean-Louis St.-Cyr and the Gestapo’s Hermann Kohler (after 2013’s Tapestry) takes the unlikely sleuthing pair to Alsace, where questions have been raised about two suicides in less than a week. The victims are connected with a rayon factory operated by one of Kohler’s former superiors during WWI, Kommandant Rasche. One, Renée Ekkehard, was Rasche’s secretary, and the other, Eugène Thomas, was the French prisoner placed in charge of the factory’s laboratory. Naturally, the story behind the deaths and what led to them is complicated, and Janes does his usual solid job of crafting a puzzle that requires his detectives to employ their acumen. But, as in previous books, the strength lies in the successful presentation of the moral dilemmas that the leads face in attempting to work honestly in the midst of horrific crimes against humanity. (May)