Animals of the French Species

“Michelle Richmond is, simply put, a great storyteller.”—Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author of Served Him Right

New York Times bestselling author Michelle Richmond brings FBI agent Lina Connerly to Paris in this exhilarating novel of espionage and expatriate life—at once a white-knuckle thriller and a moving story of a mother and son rebuilding a life abroad

How far would you go to keep the promises you make?

Still grieving the death of her husband two years earlier, FBI agent Lina Connerly welcomes the chance to relocate to Paris with her teenage son Rory. Officially, she’s posted to the Embassy to liaise between American and French counterintelligence. Unofficially, she’s hunting Calvin Cook, a fugitive American intelligence officer who leaked classified documents, fled to Russia, and is now rumoured to be somewhere in France.

Lina is still exploring expat life in Paris—Rory’s new school, the wonderful crêpes near their Haussmann apartment, the labyrinthine world of the embassy—when a celebrated American pastry chef gives her a lead on Cook, and, for the first time since her husband’s death, the possibility of romance. Meanwhile, her French colleagues pull her into a cold case they’ve never been able to crack: the mystery of the Train Fantôme. Twenty years ago, nine passengers were found dead in a single Métro car with no clear cause of death. And a recent discovery in the city tunnels suggests the threat may not have died with them.

Then people Lina personally recruited—old assets she swore she would protect—start turning up dead. Cook is burning their identities one by one. With the Train Fantôme unsolved, a summit of world leaders just days away and headquarters paralyzed by internal politics, Lina realizes she must act alone—and decide exactly how far she is willing to go to honor the promises she made.