The Bookseller
The First Hugo Marston Novel
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4.7 • 12 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Who is killing the celebrated bouquinistes of Paris? Max—an elderly Paris bookstall owner—is abducted at gunpoint. His friend, Hugo Marston, head of security at the US embassy, looks on helplessly, powerless to do anything to stop the kidnapper. Marston launches a search, enlisting the help of semiretired CIA agent Tom Green. Their investigation reveals that Max was a Holocaust survivor and later became a Nazi hunter. Is his disappearance somehow tied to his grim history, or even to the mysterious old books he sold? On the streets of Paris, tensions are rising as rival drug gangs engage in violent turf wars. Before long, other booksellers start to disappear, their bodies found floating in the Seine. Though the police are not interested in his opinion, Marston is convinced the hostilities have something to do with the murders of these bouquinistes. Then he himself becomes a target of the unknown assassins. With Tom by his side, Marston finally puts the pieces of the puzzle together, connecting the past with the present and leading the two men, quite literally, to the enemy's lair. Just as the killer intended. From the Trade Paperback edition.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Austin, Tex., ADA Pryor introduces, in his amiable first mystery, a former FBI profiler, and transplanted Texan, Hugo Marston. Wandering the City of Light on vacation from his official position as the U.S. embassy's security chief, Hugo sees a gun-toting thug kidnap elderly book dealer Max Koche straight from Max's Seine-side bookstall. When the police are slow to act, Hugo undertakes his own investigation, discovering a pattern of similar crimes against Max's community of booksellers, the bouquinistes, possibly linked to feuding drug gangs. Hugo's developing romance with journalist Claudia de Roussillon, his first since an unpleasant divorce, provides relief from the stress of the case, until a connection appears between Claudia's aristocratic father and Max's surprising past as a Nazi hunter. Pryor minimizes any of the true crime grittiness readers of his true crime blog, D.A.Confidential.com, might have expected, instead sketching a somewhat touristy but nonetheless convincing France and a refreshingly unconflicted, likable hero.
