Murder at the Porte de Versailles

In bestseller Black’s riveting 20th Aimée Leduc investigation (after 2019’s Murder in Bel-Air), tensions are high in Paris two months after 9/11. Still, life—including a birthday party for PI Aimée’s three-year-old daughter, Chloé—goes on as usual, at least until an explosion at the nearby police laboratory. The horror of that bombing becomes personal as Boris Viard, a lab employee and Aimée’s good friend, becomes a suspect when trace amounts of the explosive are found on him. Meeting resistance every step of the way from the police and Boris’s coworkers, Aimée tries to determine whether the crime might involve one of the unsolved cases of her late detective father. As Aimée wends her way through the darker parts of the City of Light in search of a possible tie to an Iranian terrorist organization, she must also resolve where her relationship with Melac, Chloé’s father, is headed just as another man reenters her life. Rich with detail about life in Paris, this entry illuminates the complications that friends and family can unwittingly create. Black shows no signs of losing steam. Agent: Katherine Fausset, Curtis Brown. (Mar.)