Murder at la Villette
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4.3 • 27 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Parisian private investigator Aimée Leduc has been framed for the murder of her daughter’s father—now she’s on the lam, and must find the real killer to clear her name in this thrilling 21st installment of Cara Black’s New York Times bestselling mystery series.
Parisian private investigator Aimée Leduc doesn’t know that her life is about to be upended. Her ex, Melac, has been hounding her to move their daughter, Chloé, to Brittany. Aimée is fed up with his threats to take her to court and has stopped answering his calls. Which is why she doesn’t know he’s waiting for her by the Bassin de la Villette as she leaves a client’s office late one night. When she finds him there, bleeding in the canal, he has just been stabbed by an assailant, who knocks Aimée unconscious and plants the bloody knife in her hands.
Now Aimée is in police custody, debilitated by a concussion, with overwhelming evidence pointing to her as Melac’s killer. She must figure out who murdered Melac—not an easy job, given the target on his back as a former homicide investigator. Cut off from her typical network and forced to operate under multiple layers of cover, Aimée must go deep into the underbelly of Paris’s 19th arrondissement, where she rubs shoulders with biker gangs, paranoid journalists, grieving parents, and frustratingly tight-lipped ex-cops on her hunt for justice.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Black shrewdly ups the stakes in the pulse-pounding 21st mystery featuring French PI Aimée Leduc (after 2022's Murder at the Porte de Versailles). In 2002 Paris, Aimée has been hired by a government ministry to identify a saboteur at tech startup Glocron. Given the assignment's covert nature, she's stunned to discover that an envelope addressed to her was slipped into her purse after a visit to Glocron's offices. Inside is a letter from her ex-boyfriend, Melac—the father of her daughter, Chloé—who's been harassing Aimée to pressure her and Chloé into moving nearer to him in Brittany. Melac has been keeping tabs on Aimée at Glocron, and after he has a harrowing encounter with a homeless man he recognizes near the company's offices one evening, he leaves Aimée a frightened voicemail. The man then stabs Melac before slitting his throat; when Aimée happens on the scene, the attacker knocks her out, plants the bloody knife on her, and flees. Swiftly accused of murdering Melac, Aimée enters a seedy underworld of Parisian biker gangs and ex-cops to track down the real killer. Though Aimée's innocence is never in doubt, Black maintains expert suspense and keeps things fresh by separating the investigator from her typical allies. This will thrill series fans and newcomers alike.
