LUPIN: PART 3: October 5 on Netflix

The long wait is over. Lupin, Part 3 arrives on Netflix October 5.  

From Netflix:

France’s most wanted gentleman thief is on the run, but he’s heading back to Paris when Lupin returns for Part 3 on Oct. 5. In the trailer for the new volume, we see Assane Diop (Sy) planning his most intense — and probably most insane — heist yet. The master of disguise is not afraid of danger, and this stunt is a 12 out of 10 on the danger scale. 

When we last saw Assane, he was on the run from the police. While he may have successfully revealed a major insurance fraud perpetrated by mega-rich entrepreneur Hubert Pellegrini (Hervé Pierre) — the man responsible for framing his father and sending him to prison years ago — that wasn’t before Hubert framed him for a murder. Now the most wanted man in France, Assane decides it’s better for his son, Raoul (Etan Simon) and ex, Claire (Ludivine Sagnier), if he falls off the radar for a bit. 

But while in hiding, Assane can’t stand  the suffering his family must endure because of him, so he returns to Paris to offer them a crazy proposal: leave France and start a new life elsewhere. But the ghosts of the past are never far away, and an unexpected return will turn his plans upside down.

LUPIN on Netflix

When I was in 10th grade, we read Arsène Lupin in my Advanced French II class. I loved the stories because they were mysteries about a Gentleman Thief and Master of Disguise! Arsène Lupin by Maurice Leblanc originally appeared in a French magazine in 1905, and the stories were later collected into a book. You can read the original stories for free, as they are now in the public domain in the U.S. There were also several films made about the Gentleman Thief.

So, of course, I was thrilled to hear that Netflix would be producing Lupin. I finally started watching this past weekend, and I'm really enjoying this series. O.K. it's not based on the original stories, but is inspired by them and has such a great twist. I'm watching in French, and there are subtitles (or dubbing) for non-French speakers. Assane Diop sets out to avenge his father for an injustice inflicted by a wealthy family. Lupin, created by George Kay (Criminal, Killing Eve), in collaboration with François Uzan (Family Business), made the choice not to re-imagine Arsène Lupin in today’s Paris, but rather have its leading man be influenced by the fictional character. In the five episodes of Part 1 released by Netflix, Lupin follows Assane Diop (played by Omar Sy), whose life was turned upside down as a teenager when his father died after being accused of a crime he didn’t commit. Now, 25 years later, Assane tries to avenge his father, using the character of Arsène Lupin as his inspiration. And, if you love Paris (and are missing it right now), you'll experience the City of Lights through the vivid scenery. 

Part One of the first season aired on January 8, with Netflix dropping five episodes of about 50 minutes each. Netflix said today it would be bringing out Part two (5 episodes), wrapping up the events of season 1, some time soon. Word on the street (or on social media) is that they will drop sometime this winter or early spring.  Let's hope so. There's no word on Season 2 yet.

From Forbes:

Arsène Lupin has been adapted for the screen many times from the early years of cinema’s history. The very first adaptation was during the silent era in 1909, Le voleur mondain directed by Georges Fagot and starring Max Linder. The latest adaptation in France was directed by Jean-Paul Salomé and starred Romain Duris and Kristin Scott Thomas in 2004.

What makes Lupin different from all these prior adaptations is that it places this well-known story of the gentleman thief within today’s society, highlighting the persistence of racial prejudices—the very reason why Assane’s father was so easily accused and found guilty for a crime he did not commit.

Three Hours in Paris: Guest Post by Cara Black

CARA BLACK: 
THREE HOURS IN PARIS

Today the world has changed and we’re in uncharted waters. I’m trying hard to wrap my head around how to help readers find THREE HOURS IN PARIS, and think about its relevance today since this interview I did with my editor. On one level my book is a story about resistance and the fight against fascism. We’re living in a time when so much going on echoes the past. Yet, given a situation like the one Kate Rees, my protagonist, finds her self in; choosing to fight back in a way she can, lends itself to today. Fighting back can be interpreted in everyday ways; speaking out, questioning and making your voices heard ie #metoo. Not all of us would or could fight back Kate’s way but every act of resistance is Resistance.

Kate to me is an everywoman - a daughter, a sister, a mother, a wife - who finding herself against the circumstances of war and tragedy, struggles and persists and doesn’t let up. She knows the world wasn’t always like this. That it will pass but in so doing there’s a toll taken. Yes, her struggle and survival is hopeful because it’s about persisting and doing what you feel is the right thing. Hope you’re staying safe and reading all the books in your TBR pile!

An Interview with Author Cara Black and Her Editor Juliet Grames 
(reprinted with permission of Cara Black and Juliet Grimes)

What made you decide to write a story about a female assassin? 

CB: Years ago, I read my father’s copy of The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth, and then I saw the 1973 film. This is the tale of a brilliant for-hire assassin tasked by the OAS with killing de Gaulle. Pitted against him are the government, who flounder in the dark to prevent the assassination attempt until they draft one of their own Parisian police. It’s a riveting cat-and-mouse story—we know before reading that de Gaulle survived, but it’s still so suspenseful, so tense, so delicately balanced. My throat catches every time I rewatch the film, which I do every year. Every time I pass the Montparnasse train station I look up at the Jackal’s window where he was aiming at de Gaulle and calculate the rifle angle. I think that inspired my window for Kate in Montmartre. I wanted to try my hand at writing an assassin story—but with my own spin, one that could include pieces of the WWII resistance history I have hoarded over twenty years of researching the Aimée Leduc novels in Paris. 

But there was also a historical template for female assassins in WWII. The Russian army had a regiment of highly successful female snipers. The star female assassin, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, was credited with 309 kills, the highest of a woman and in the top five of all snipers. In 1943 she was invited to the White House, met Eleanor Roosevelt and toured the USA. Of course, the United States didn’t enter the war until after Pearl Harbor in 1941 but I was still intrigued by that what if: What if an American woman had been a sniper in WWII? Why not?

I read a newspaper article in 2010 about the death of a quiet and reclusive elderly lady in a British coastal town. The woman had no known relatives and no friends, but when local authorities entered her home they found she was far from the typical pensioner. They discovered among her possessions a medal from Britain as well as France’s highest wartime honor, the Croix de Guerre. She was Eileen Nearne—aka Agent Rose, one of the female spies dispatched by Britain into occupied France in World War II by the SOE. Eileen Nearne became a clandestine radio operator, was caught and put in Ravensbrück but survived. There are stories like this that beg to be told; women who worked as spies, who signed the Official Secrets Act during the war and never broke their silence.

Kate to me is an everywoman—a daughter, a sister, a mother, a wife—who, due to tragedy and loss in war, seeks revenge and rises to the challenge of using her skill set. In war time, “doing one’s part” is a larger-than-life task, and so rising to the challenge includes becoming a larger-than-life character.

During the Second World War, secret services around the world knew women made perfect agents: in many ways, they were invisible as a man wouldn’t be. As innocent as they might appear while walking with a basket of eggs or mopping a floor, they could escape detection and perform sabotage, set up resistance networks, operate radios, and infiltrate occupied buildings as cleaners, mail couriers, housewives. The possibilities were endless.

Kate is recruited by a British intelligence officer to work for Section D, a deniable branch that specializes in foreign interference and sabotage. How much of your description of Section D is real? 

CB: Section D was real, and some of its records have even survived the war and been declassified, although of course many more were destroyed, so it is impossible to know its full scope and nature. I envision a clandestine department that specialized in missions like Kate’s—ungentlemanly war, fought by recruits of Irregulars who performed sabotage and assassinations in Occupied Europe.

What about the technology you mention? Was it real? 

CB: All of the technology I mention has a basis in real wartime inventions, although I have taken fictional liberties. At the beginning of the war, in the British race for building airplanes and fighting equipment, many tools were also being developed for clandestine warfare. I became intrigued when I discovered information about the S-phone, very cutting-edge, which the British developed, buried in a Stanford University library archive. I was also fascinated by the way Lee Enfield rifles were adapted to sniper capabilities as prototypes before field and general operational use. There was even a lipstick gun which I was dying for Kate to use, but alas, it didn’t quite fit in the story.

Kate has very little formal training in spycraft but endless creativity for inventing ways to get herself out of jams—for surviving. Where did you get these ideas? 

CB: I was inspired by the idea of what skills Kate would have had to develop as a girl growing up on a series of Oregon ranches. Ranch work is a tough job, and would have been even harder in the 1930s. Life was subject to incessant rain, blizzards, falling trees, insect infestation or crop failure. Cattle would get stuck in barb wire, tractor tires puncture, equipment breaks—all these problems need to be solved on the fly, with few resources. One would learn to think on one’s feet, make do and get creative with what’s available. So Kate, who grew up in a rough and tumble environment with five brothers, learns to hold her own and becomes resilient.

This is your 20th book. Do you have any advice for aspiring writers about the writing life? 

CB: Just write what you’re passionate about. If there’s a what if that won’t leave you, listen to yourself.

CHASING THE CAROUSELS OF PARIS: Guest Post by Kaye Wilkinson Barley

KAYE WILKINSON BARLEY:
CHASING THE CAROUSELS OF PARIS

“Kaye and Donald Barley’s photographs of Parisian carousels capture the whimsy, wit, and charm of the raucous merry-go-rounds that pepper the cobblestone streets and manicured parks of the City of Light. So grab a copy of Carousels of Paris and let your imagination wander back to a world full of colored lights and painted horses, quaint carriages and playful tigers, fantastical griffins and endangered dodos.”
—Juliet Blackwell, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost Carousel of Provence and Letters from Paris 

“Simply enchanting! The carousels are delightful and the photographers manage to bring them to life. I half expected them to leap off the pages. I absolutely adored this book!”
—Jenn McKinlay, New York Times bestselling author and author of soon to be released Paris is Always a Good Idea

To say I’m pleased with these kind words from two authors I admire is an understatement, at the very least.

Researching, photographing and writing Carousels of Paris has been pure fun, hearing nice things being said about it is a bonus of enormous portions.

I’ve been in love with carousels for as long as I can remember, and it started with Trimper’s carousel on the Ocean City, MD Boardwalk. It was purchased in 1912 from the Herschell-Spillman Company in North Tonawanda, NY and is still in use today.

I rode it when I was a little girl, and still ride it whenever we get back to Ocean City.

That was the beginning of a love affair which was reignited while planning my first trip to Paris.

Falling in love with Paris included falling in love with their carousels.

I knew there was a carousel at the base of the Eiffel Tower, having seen lots of pictures of it over the years.

I did not know that there are approximately 20.

They’re in the gardens – both large and small tucked away hidden gardens, and occasionally plopped down in the street near a Metro Station.

I say there are approximately 20 because some of them are there for awhile, then not. Such is the case with the carousel in front of the Hotel de Ville. We’ve missed it both times we’ve been to Paris. But we know it shows back up, so we just have to go back, I guess, and look again.

We have tried our best to capture and photograph all of them, but like I mentioned, when we get to the location specified we are no longer surprised to find that it’s gone – possibly moved to another location temporarily.

Or, truth be told, it’s very easy to get sidetracked by something else while on a carousel hunt in Paris. And one would be silly to pass by a small café set back under the trees in Luxembourg Gardens for a brief respite with a pastry and a café crème.

And maybe, just maybe, we’ll get back to Paris one day and finish looking for the rest of those magical carousels.

To photograph.

And to ride.

***

Kaye Wilkinson Barley lives with her husband of almost 34 years, Don, in the North Carolina mountains along with one little princess of a pup—Annabelle, who is a fluffy Welsh Corgi. They’re both retired and spending time doing things together they both enjoy—photography and traveling. And saving their “Pennies for Paris” to try to photograph the rest of the carousels of Paris for their next book.

Murder in Saint-Germain: Guest Post by Cara Black

Cara Black is the New York Times bestselling author of 17 books in the Private Investigator Aimée Leduc series, which is set in Paris. Cara has received multiple nominations for the Anthony and Macavity Awards, a Washington Post Book World Book of the Year citation, the Médaille de la Ville de Paris—the Paris City Medal, which is awarded in recognition of contribution to international culture—and invitations to be the Guest of Honor at conferences such as the Paris Polar Crime Festival and Left Coast Crime. Pre-order Cara Black’s Murder in Saint-Germain from any bookseller before 6/6/2017 and send proof of purchase to preorders@sohopress.com to receive a free Eiffel Tower USB pre-loaded with Cara Black’s tour guide inspired by her latest book!

Cara Black:
Murder in Saint-Germain

Utter the phrase Left Bank in Paris and one thinks of world renowned locations; the prestigious Ecole des Beaux Arts, Picasso’s studio where he painted Guernica, back offices of the Sénat, the church of Saint Germain des Pres, and the Closerie des Lilas, famous as one of Hemingway's favorite cafés to name a few. We think of the artists and writers at outdoor cafes where they nursed a coffee all day, the chic passersby, the tang of Gauloise. It all called to me. Especially the Jardin du Luxembourg, the spreading lawns, chalky gravel paths, with the pond and boats, statues staring from flower beds, the quiet spots under the leafy trees for reading. So ripe for murder.

A few books back while researching in Paris, I was lucky to meet Catherine, a former Brigade Criminelle officer (the elite Paris homicide squad) who then worked part-time at the Comissariat in the 14th arrondissement. I wanted to know what her experiences were as a woman, in the late 80’s into the 90’s, in a male dominated team. I’ve learned success comes from finding the right question to ask an interviewee. Even more interesting, that when I think I do, the person relates experience much more fascinating, giving a me a kernel of thought for a new idea or a story. I’ve learned it’s always better to go with the conversations and where they drift and learn new things and tidbits.

It’s a great way to discover procedure and how the police operate in ways that I’d never have thought of asking about. Catherine spoke about the Eastern European criminals and gangs as a source of arms smuggled into France. Arms were brought in from the then recently collapsed Soviet Union through routes to Europe. Later, the arms came from the conflicts in Sarajevo, the Balkans. Also, a lot of these former soldiers took mercenary jobs, or just redirected their efforts to crime in Europe. The famous Pink Panther jewelry heist gang, very slick, organized, come from the Balkans. Catherine opened up about her secondment to the International Court Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and her tours of duty there. She made several years doing tours of duty and enforcement with an International team. She burned out there, suffered trauma and we’d call it PTSD. Looking at my notes about those conversations, I felt there was an issue to address and it intrigued me. I hadn’t set a book in Saint-Germain. It was perfect, full of history, charm and buckling cobblestones. Yet everyone probably knew it better than I did - who didn’t go to St Germain des Pres and have a coffee where Albert Camus and Sartre and de Beauvoir sat? What backdoor could I find for Aimée? Off the beaten track interests me more. I wondered what would she be doing there?

A real challenge. Then thinking about it, Aimée had gone to Ecole des Medicins in Saint-Germain, her grandfather had loved a model at Ecole des Beaux Arts…I’d been to that seedy hotel where Oscar Wilde had died. .. Complicating matters for Aimée is the fact that she is now the single mother of an 8-month old baby. So now I was off and running with Aimée and Murder in Saint- Germain. Fiction, especially crime fiction, can connect the past and present. We see historical themes and trends come to the forefront.

Crime novels encompass all levels of society, from the street cleaner to a countess, murder doesn’t respect class or upbringing. It’s a way to explore sociology, the issues facing today and breathe relevancy into present day as characters experience it.

International Mysteries Literary Salon January 26: Jeffrey Siger, Cara Black, Lisa Alber

Mark your calendars for Thursday, January 26, 7 p.m.!
INTERNATIONAL MYSTERY NIGHT! 

Join Mystery Readers NorCal for a LITERARY SALON in Berkeley (CA) with Jeff Siger (Greece), Cara Black (Paris), and Lisa Alber (Ireland).
Open to All, but you must RSVP to attend. Space Limited. Address given when you RSVP.
Make a comment below with your email.

Jeffrey Siger (Greece)

Jeffrey Siger, born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, practiced law at a major Wall Street law firm and, while there, served as Special Counsel to the citizens group responsible for reporting on New York City's prison conditions. He left Wall Street to establish his own New York City law firm and continued as one of its name partners. He now lives and writes full-time in Mykonos, his adopted home of 30+ years.

Santorini Caesars is the eighth novel in his internationally best-selling and award nominated Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis series, following up on Devil in Delphi, Sons of Sparta, Mykonos After Midnight, Target: Tinos, Prey on Patmos, Assassins of Athens, and Murder in Mykonos.

Cara Black (Paris)

Cara Black is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of 14 books in the Private Investigator Aimée Leduc series, which is set in Paris. Cara has received multiple nominations for the Anthony and Macavity Awards, a Washington Post Book World Book of the Year citation, the Médaille de la Ville de Paris—the Paris City Medal, which is awarded in recognition of contribution to international culture—and invitations to be the Guest of Honor at conferences such as the Paris Polar Crime Festival and Left Coast Crime.

With more than 400,000 books in print, the Aimée Leduc series has been translated into German, Norwegian, Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian, and Hebrew.

Lisa Alber (Ireland)

Lisa Alber is the author of the County Clare mystery series, which has been described as atmospheric, complex, and with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing. The first novel, "Kilmoon," was a Rosebud Award finalist for best debut novel. The second novel, "Whispers in the Mist," is now available. Lisa is busy writing the third (and fourth!) novels in the series.

Travel with Cara Black: A Week in Paris

A Week in Paris with Cara Black 
November 13 through 19, 2016 
Optional 3-day Extension November 19 through 22, 2016

Ready to pack your bags? Click here for the registration form. 

You’re invited to join Cara and other Cara Black mystery-lovers for an exclusive week in Paris. You’ll spend time with Cara exploring some of the most memorable scenes associated with the cases private investigator Aimée Leduc has solved in several books. And you’ll also have time to spend in some of the small gems of Paris – the lesser-known museums, the spectacular parks, the off-the-beaten- track cafés, the hidden passages that are home to specialty boutiques, antiquarian bookstores and other treasures.

Whether you’ve been to Paris before or not, you’ll get to know the city in a more intimate way. On some days, Cara will lead you to the “scene of the crime” and other settings you’ve read about in the Aimée Leduc series. On other days, you’ll choose from a menu of options that you’d like to do with Donna or Sheila (museums, walking tours, shopping).

Trip leaders Donna Morris of Best Friend in Paris and Sheila Campbell of Wild Blue Yonder, have managed a number of sold-out Paris and Provence experiences, including one last year with Cara, – trips that earn rave reviews from participants. They’ll lead you in small groups, via Metro or city buses, moving about the city like Parisians. You can spend as much time – or as little – with the group as you like.

Donna and Sheila will help you find the things you’re most interested in, and tell you the best way to get there. They function as your friends on the ground, depending on your needs.

Boutique hotel is located in the Paris neighborhood described in Murder in Clichy, in the 8th arrondissement.  Group will meet in the hotel salon each evening with Cara to sample French wines and discuss the days’ events, with a bit of book talk thrown into the mix.

Read more Here.

Camille Lerens: Guest post by Mark Pryor

Mark Pryor is the author of the Hugo Marston novels The Bookseller, The Crypt Thief, The Blood Promise, The Button Man, and The Reluctant Matador, and the stand-alone Hollow Man. He has also published the true-crime book As She Lay Sleeping. A native of Hertfordshire, England, he is an assistant district attorney in Austin, Texas, where he lives with his wife and three children. The Paris Librarian (Seventh Street Books) will be out August 9, 2016.

Mark Pryor:
Camille Lerens
 
The question has been posed to me in several ways, by numerous people, and with varying degrees of politeness: how and why did I create a transgender French police Lieutenant for my Hugo Marston series, and did doing so cause me any concerns?

Allow me to explain, using geraniums and pastries as props.

My first novel, The Bookseller, is set in Paris during the winter, and at one point my protagonist Hugo Marston is wandering the streets and enjoying the old buildings, appreciating the hotels with their window boxes that “spilled red geraniums.” Later in the story, Hugo takes a trip to the Pyrenees Mountains where he enjoys a nice meal followed by a crème patisserie layered with strawberries.

A year or two after the book came out, I received an email from a reader who said she’d enjoyed the story and characters very much, but she felt the need to point out two things: that geraniums don’t flower in the winter, and one can’t get strawberries in the Pyrenees in winter.

On that second point, I phoned my dear old mum who lives in the very village Hugo visited and asked whether that was true, whether she could get strawberries during winter.

“Can I buy strawberries here?” She was confused by the question. “Yes, but I’m sure it’d be easier for you to buy your own, rather than me send you some,” she said. “They’d be mushy by the time they got to Texas.”

“No, mum, I meant do they sell strawberries there in winter? If you want some, can you get them?”

“It’s not 1950 here, you know. Of course you can, they’re just a bit more expensive,” she said. “Why are you asking silly questions?”

I emailed my reader back and politely pointed out the availability of fresh fruit in the Pyrenees. Ever the gentleman, I declined to point out that many of the geraniums in Paris’s window boxes are fake. Pretty, but fake.

All of this is to say that I hesitated before I created the character of Camille Lerens because I knew that if I got her wrong, there would be consequences.

I hesitated a lot.

You see, there’s an old writers’ saw that says, “Write what you know.” It’s obviously a recommendation and not a rule but generally speaking it’s a good one. It doesn’t mean, by the way, that you should only write about things you already know. I take it to mean that if you can research a subject or visit a place to give your story authenticity, that’s just fine. Plastic flowers and strawberries in winter? Check.

But a transgender, black police woman ain’t no bowl of strawberries. Characters are people, not mere places or objects, and for a book to convince and charm its readers the characters have to be real. I didn’t want to create a character I couldn’t make real, I couldn’t do justice to. And on a topic like this, there was a lot of room to not just get it wrong but to get it insultingly wrong.

But I also wanted to create a book, or series of books, that reflect the changing world around us—I gave my first Paris detective a Spanish name, because Europe today is more of a melting pot than ever. I made Hugo’s first love interest a confident, professional woman because, as my mother pointed out, this isn’t the 1950s.

This wasn’t enough, though, because I realized that with just one exception, all of my major characters in that first book were middle-aged white guys. So sure, the characters themselves might seem real but they lived in a world that was pretty homogenous. Take a look around, I told myself, that world is long gone. And yet I stuffed my book with… middle-aged white men.

Including the bad guy.

I introduced Camille Lerens in the third novel, The Blood Promise, after the untimely demise of her colleague (no names, no spoilers, but I’ll admit I even surprised myself!). Right there and then it seemed like a good time to change things up a little. We hear about the need for diversity a lot in today’s world and I agree that it’s important. Important in books, too, and by bringing Camille into that novel I now have wonderful dose of diversity for the series. But why specifically her, the way she is?

There’s a reason, sure enough. You see, the older I get, the more keenly I become aware of how lucky I am. With my writing career, my legal career, with my family and friends. Sure, I worked hard to get here but I’ve had help along the way. And there’s one thing I’ve not had to deal with, ever: discrimination. (Apart from the time a criminal defense lawyer filed a motion to prevent me using my English accent in trial! (http://www.daconfidential.com/2009/10/i-say-tom-ah-to-you-try-to-stop-me.html.))

The combination of good fortune and my realization that others aren’t as lucky have combined for the past fifteen years or so to make me strive to understand people who are different, either through choice or by dint of nature. I’m as straight as an arrow but I’ll fight for anyone in the LGBT community. I’m as white as snow, but heaven help you if you utter racist slurs in my presence.

Which is all to say that writing Camille Lerens is a way to understand a different world view. To explore it. For me, yes, but also a way to subject my other cis-gendered characters to someone different from them. And this isn’t a purely political exercise, not at all. In every book I strive to put my protagonist Hugo in situations that test him in one way or another. Maybe physically, maybe mentally, maybe emotionally. For a straight Texas male to come across, and have to work with, a black transgender cop was a reminder to him, as well as to me and my readers, that the world is changing in wonderful ways and welcoming that change moves us all forward.

In talks and at book signings I often describe Hugo as a “fish out of water,” a cowboy-boot wearing Texas lawman on the streets of Paris. And any story is enhanced, I think, by that concept of a character not just fighting the bad guys but fighting a part of himself, striving to find himself in his new location. Camille Lerens was a fish out of water for much of her life, right up until she was able to live as herself, realize her true self. I like that she can do that on the pages of my books, with good people like Hugo, Tom, and Claudia to support her.

Not that she should get comfortable.

Camille’s predecessor learned that in crime fiction anything can happen at any time, which means that no one is ever completely safe from the knife or the bullet. Oh no, because as much fun as I have with my gaggle of good guys, I really love dreaming up the wicked characters and when it comes to carrying out their evils deeds, Hugo, Tom, and Camille need to understand that they don’t discriminate either.

Legendary Bookshop in Paris

The legendary Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris sheltered customers during last night's terrorist attacks.

More Paris in Springtime

So as soon as I posted about Cara Black's latest Aimee Le Duc mystery, Murder in the Latin Quarter, two more mysteries came across my desk. Well, actually I read about the first one on The Rap Sheet. Haven't read it yet, but it sounds great.

Pictures at an Exhibition by Sara Houghteling is a debut novel. Houghteling tells the stories of a Parisian art gallery owner whose collection of paintings was looted by the Nazis, and of his son’s quest to recover his father's lost masterpieces after the war. That's enough to hook me.

And, I just opened a package from The New Press with a copy of Beyond Suspicion: A Novel by Tanguy Viel, translated from the French by Linda Coverdale, with an introduction by Jonathan Lethem. This one is set in the South of France. "Set in the south of France where the stakes are high and no one is beyond suspicion, this Hitchcockian tale presents siblings and lovers in constantly shifting configurations. The grace and precision of Viel’s language are eloquently captured by prizewinning translator Linda Coverdale’s lyrical prose." It's a novella, and it just went on my TBR stack.