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| The Thread's Must Read |
“Murder in Bel-Air” by Cara Black
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My international crime spree of recommendations takes us to Paris this week, with an experienced crime-solver and another intriguing subplot that dips into the Interpol pursuit of a suspected terrorist and a political coup in the making.
Cara Black has published 20 Aimee Leduc mysteries, all set in the arrondissements of Paris. In this one, she delivers a puzzle that forces Aimee to turn back to her own complicated family history.
Why has her mother, once an American CIA operative who abandoned her when she was just 8 years old, been seen meeting with a woman just minutes before her death? How much does her mother, who has vanished again, know about the cache of money and the key the victim concealed before her death? And what connection could it have to a brewing coup in a small African nation?
The sleuthing is fun: Aimee wears her vintage Chanel into hip cocktail bars and dank sewers as she follows obscure clues. But it is Aimee herself that is the draw. She’s an outsider in insular Paris: zipping around the city on a scooter; unmarried and raising a daughter with a circle of loyal friends and helpers; spending the night every now and then with an irresistible bad boy.
In her author’s note, Cara Black, confides that her interest in writing was sparked by the stories her mother told her of growing up on the south side of Chicago. And although her mother never worked for the CIA, her influence is all over Black’s popular series. “I remember when I published my first book and was terrified to speak about it in front of people,” she writes. “They would know that I wasn’t French; would they doubt the authenticity of my novel? My love for Paris? My mother waved aside these fears with a single piece of advice: Be yourself. That’s all you can be.”
-Kerri Miller |
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| | | 'Hunger Games' prequel novel coming in 2020 |
A decade after seemingly wrapping up "The Hunger Games," Suzanne Collins is bringing readers back to Panem. A prequel, set 64 years before the beginning of her multimillion-selling trilogy, is coming next year.
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