After my miserable experience with the last Aimee Leduc book, I approached this with more than a little trepidation. I am extremely happy to say that it was just a little bump along the cobblestone streets and Aimee and Rene are back with a vengeance.
Yves, Aimee’s on again, off again paramour, the world travelling investigative reporter appears out of nowhere one warm August night. The last she knew, he was in Cairo and they had parted on not terribly friendly terms. But there he was, sweeping her up in his arms and before she know what was happening they were sharing a bottle of Veuve Cliquot and he was proposing to her. He had just gotten a promotion and would be stationed in Paris for Agence France-Presse, but more importantly, he couldn’t get her out of his mind and wanted to build a life with her. To our relief, she said yes.
But that joy was short-lived. She awoke later and he was gone, which was a little unsettling and the old doubts creeped in, but she soon learned the unthinkable: Yves had been murdered, his throat slashed and left for dead on the Rue de Paradis. The Brigade Criminelle have a male hustler in custody, who was caught in possession of Yves phone and wallet, so they chalk his murder up to an assignation gone wrong. But even with her doubts about how well she really knew Yves, she knows they have the wrong man. The the story really kicks into high gear, involving old Kurdish and Turkish rivalries, jihads and bribes and other cover-ups regarding government contracts rebuilding areas devastated by terrorist ethnic cleansing.
A return to form, with a cracking good mystery and another level to the extreme will that Aimee employs, since she is fighting for the memory of her lover as well as for her own life. My only quibble is this: at the very end of the book Guy the eye doctor comes back into the picture. Aimee’s life always moves at a breakneck spped but giver her a little time to mourn Yves, will ya?