WINEMAKER DETECTIVE MYSTERIES PAGE: #8 through #11

MONTMARTRE MYSTERIES (Winemaker Detective Mysteries #8)
JEAN-PIERRE ALAUX & Noël Balen (tr. Sally Pane)
Le French Book (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Wine expert Benjamin Cooker travels to the French capital, where his is called to help care for some vineyards in Montmartre, a neighborhood full of memories for him. He stops in on an old friend. Arthur Solacroup left the Foreign Legion to open a wine shop good enough to be in the Cooker Guide.

But an attempted murder brings the past back into the present. But which past? The winemaker detective and his assistant Virgile want to know more, and their investigation leads them from the sands of Djibouti to the vineyards of Côte du Rhône.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Virgile must've been a bad lad indeed in book seven, which I have not read. He comes in for much barbed raillery about his free-lovin' ways, not a thing I'd associate with an impending father-in-law relationship; but he is still here, and still obviously his mentor's pet despite the teasing.

Arthur, an old friend of Benjamin's and a former member of the Foreign Legion, is in need of the winelover's assistance hence the men's travel to Paris. Arthur has an attempted assassination in front, more or less, of them; the past in the Foreign Legion coming home to roost...?

We find out, of course; we also learn why Arthur decided to open a wine shop in Montmartre, and how Benjamin came to be his friend. The past is never that far from any mystery, especially in a series; this entry goes a lot further into Benjamin's past than usual. I enjoyed that, and enjoyed how Arthur came to be where he is (in a coma after the attack on him the men interrupted).

The excuse to get the men to Paris is as flimsy as anything I've ever read: A woman running some convent or hospital or something in Paris has a teensy remnant of a vineyard attached to it and asks Benjamin to come resuscitate it; he agrees, more than anything just to make the trip plausible enough. Virgile is the man of the hour, though. He's more the crimesolver than his boss is.

It's not the best book in the series but it worked fine: Arthur's shop is the occasion for much discussion of many delectable sounding bottles. The main lack is odd: the evocation of Paris feels...postcard level, facile and surface-oriented. I wished it had been more as is usual in this series of quite short reads. We're not going into history-book depths anywhere but more than this, if you please. Still quite readable and kept me engrossed enough to enjoy it.

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BACKSTABBING IN BEAUJOLAIS (Winemaker Detective Mysteries #9)
JEAN-PIERRE ALAUX & Noël Balen (tr. Anne Trager)
Le French Book (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: The Winemaker Detective goes to Beaujolais, in a French-style cozy mystery for lovers of food and drink, amateur sleuth stories or anything set in France.

A business magnate calls on wine expert Benjamin Cooker to kickstart his new wine business in Beaujolais, sparking bitter rivalries. Can the Winemaker Detective and his assistant keep calculating real estate agents, taciturn winegrowers, dubious wine merchants and suspicious deaths from delaying delivery of the world-famous Beaujolais Nouveau? Another adventure in this made-for-TV mystery series set in France. Both a wine novel and a mystery.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Beaujolais Nouveau was all the rage ten-plus years ago, my memory informs me. I think the wine industry was having us on: “You can drink Beaujolais early on, but the wines frequently open up three to five years after being bottled. They are precocious and aromatic, but round enough to have a lingering taste.”

So there US wine snobs.

As a wealthy philistine wants to acquire a vineyard in Beaujolais to experiment with some new ideas in the making of the stuff, he runs into opposition from local people as well as his own haute Parisienne wife. The latter insists he consult with Benjamin, a renowned expert on wine, to determine how viable his plan to alter the way Beaujolais is drunk. But really, there's quite an amount of inertia in this process: “From time immemorial, {Beaujolais Nouveau} has been celebrated when it’s young, at the start of fermentation. Centuries ago winemakers traded early in the year, and the yeast would complete its job while the barrels were in transit, moving slowly by carriage or boat along the Saône and Rhône rivers or up the Loire.”

Change is hard anywhere. Changing the way the French make and consume wine? If you come for the king, you'd best not miss. That was our millionaire, Guillaume's, error. We're treated to the murder early in the story...but we're not told who's been murdered, so all the characters we meet during the story could be either the victims or the murderers.

It was a nice touch, and I'd've loved to see it on TV because I can't come up with a way to make the idea work. I'll assume it does but man, am I curious as to how. In this installment, Benjamin is the driver of the story because Guillaume has hired him for the legendary expertise he has in the entire world of wine. Of course Guillaume is looking for a certain outcome to the questions he's set Benjamin; he misjudged Benjamin, though, as Benjamin will pursue the truth. It would reflect poorly on his profesional honor to be seen doing Guillaume's bidding. You hire the best, you'd best be ready to believe their report.

Benjamin and Virgile banter and talk and generally behave as always, only now in Lyon and Beaujolais, as they discuss the case, the local wines, literature, how much they loved last night's meal; all the things that keep us coming back to the series.

By the time the murders were solved, I'd sort of accepted there wasn't a solution. There was; and it was dead clever for the authors to hide the victim this time instead of the perpetrator. A very fun entry into the series I'm still enjoying. (Though not really so much thrilled with the lists; they persist.)

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LATE HARVEST HAVOC (The Winemaker Detective Series Book 10)
JEAN-PIERRE ALAUX & Noël Balen (tr. Sally Pane)
Le French Book (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Disaster strikes the vineyards in Alsace. Vintners are tense and old grudges surface. The Winemaker Detective's reputation is on the line as he must find the cause before the late harvest starts.

Winter is in the air in Alsace and local customs are sowing trouble, piquing the curiosity of the famous winemaker from Bordeaux, Benjamin Cooker. While the wine expert and his assistant Virgile settle into their hotel in the old city of Colmar, distinguished vineyards are attacked. Is it revenge?

The plot thickens when estates with no apparent connection to one another suffer the same sabotage just days prior to the late harvest. All of Alsace is in turmoil, plunged in the grip of suspicion that traces its roots back to the darkest hours of the German occupation. As he crosses back and forth into Germany from the Alsace he thought he knew so well, Cooker discovers a land of superstition, rivalry, and jealousy. Between tastings of the celebrated wines, he is drawn into the lives and intrigues of the inhabitants.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Benjamin is getting older. As is so often the case, it's something outside himself that sours his usually fairly confident-in-goodness manner. It makes some sense, even, as it comes from nothing so petty as murdering someone you hate for one or another reason.

Someone is attacking the vines of Alsace. Someone is systematically and violently attacking the means of making wine in this ancient part-French, part-German province that Benjamin has known (he thought) most of his career. Some darker mutterings even accuse Benjamin, an outsider from the south, of being connected to the chainsaw attacks on the vines.

We'd get soured by that kind of gross insult to our specialist knowledge and passion, too. Virgile is the one who really shines, and that is always nice to see. He's still a skirt-chasin' houndawg, but he has skills he's honed under Benjamin's tutelage. He uses them to good advantage as he pokes into another viper's nest of Occupation resentments, as we saw in book #4. it felt a little bit weird for the men to wander from Lorraine into Germany and back seemingly at a whim, but it certainly drove home the point that the cultures on either side of the border are subtly different, they're not *dramatically* so; it makes sense to do that in the context of the story's resolution.

I was a bit confronted by the bolder-than-usual sex scene.

I'll say that Alsace, Strasbourg and its cathedral, and gewürztraminer all mean more to me than they ever have. I'm still eager to try, one day, mirabelle plums from nearby Lorraine; since they can't be exported, though, that is a very very unlikely eventuality.

I keep reading these stories, lists and all, because they are short enough to read in a sitting, dense of story enough to satisfy me as I read; and there are enough of them that I can get a solid foothold in their storyverse.

Don't start here, but don't stop before you get here, either.

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TAINTED TOKAY (The Winemaker Detective Series #11)
JEAN-PIERRE ALAUX & Noël Balen (tr. Sally Pane)
Le French Book (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In between enjoying sumptuous food and wine, the Winemaker Detective grapples with deceit and deception in Old World Europe.

France’s top wine expert Benjamin Cooker sets off to enjoy the delights of Vienna, a romantic ride down the Danube, a gourmand’s visit to Budapest, and a luxury train through the enchanting Hungarian countryside. All too soon, stolen wallets, disappearing passports, guides who are a bit too obliging, and murder mar the trip. Meanwhile, in Bordeaux, Cooker’s assistant handsome Virgile faces an annoying rival and a mildew crisis in the vineyards just as Cooker’s lab technician is the victim of a mugging.

If you love cozy culinary mysteries, amateur detective stories, international mysteries with French flair, or anything wine-related, this made-for-TV series offers armchair travel at its best with gentle mysteries.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Vienna? Hungary?!

What the actual. I was not expecting this, nor was I bargaining on Benjamin leaving Virgile in Bordeaux to make this lucullan journey. And does Virgile ever get the short end of the stick! All the practical problems are his to figure out and then to solve.

Benjamin, meantime, is spending time with his much-loved Elisabeth as they take in the scenery of the wine world along the Danube. It is genuinely the main pleasure I had in this story, their charming interactions. The authors make it clear these are soul mates, real genuine friends married and very devoted to each other. The tribulations of the murders around them merely make that clearer; they handle the different challenges with the sangfroid of long-established couples.

Back in Bordeaux, the disasters plaguing Benjamin's premises are affecting his every asset. Alexandrine, whose tenure with Benjamin exceeds Virgile's (I think; could be wrong about that), has hitherto kept her distance from Virgile which makes her more interesting, frankly.

Well, that's over.

Too bad, that, she went from mildly interesting in a greyscaled-Moneypenny way to just being another woman on Virgile's cosmic rapsheet. It was here that I determined the series and I were parting company. I'm just not able to gin up much interest in Virgile's exploits in bed, they outnumber the times he's taken the investigative lead, and...well...Vienna? I'm not very interested in the Danubian plains, and it's usually a sign we're going to spend more time outside the wine-world of France when we get time in foreign places back-to-back.

I had an excellent time with Benjamin, Elisabeth, Virgile, and the crew. I'd prefer to leave smiling so that's what I'm doing.

WINEMAKER DETECTIVE MYSTERIES PAGE: TREACHERY IN BORDEAUX, #1; #4 through #6

TREACHERY IN BORDEAUX (Winemaker Detective Mysteries #1)
JEAN-PIERRE ALAUX & Noël Balen (tr. Anne Trager)
Le French Book (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: THE PERFECT BLEND OF MYSTERY & GASTRONOMY

Treachery in Bordeaux is the first book in the beloved Winemaker Detective novels, the "addictive" French series featuring master winemaker Benjamin Cooker and his sidekick Virgile. When some barrels turn at the prestigious grand cru Moniales Haut-Brion wine estate, Cooker and Virgile start to investigate. Is it negligence or sabotage? They search the city and wine region for answers, welcoming readers into the underworld of a global luxury industry. Grab a glass of your favorite Bordeaux and delve into a world of money, deceit, inheritance, greed, and fine wine.

Brimming with description, intrigue, and compelling characters, Treachery in Bordeaux kicks off this unbeatable series, which was adapted to television in France.

"I love good mysteries. I love good wine. So imagine my joy at finding a great mystery about wine, and winemaking, and the whole culture of that fascinating world. This is a terrific new series." — William Martin, New York Times bestselling author of Back Bay and The Lincoln Letter

"A fine vintage forged by the pens of two very different varietals. It is best consumed slightly chilled, and never alone. You will be intrigued by its mystery, and surprised by its finish, and it will stay with you for a very long time." —Peter May, international bestselling author

“Intrigue and plenty of good eating and drinking within just a few pages.”—Booklist

“Those who like detective stories that rely on the fine qualities of the investigator will find Cooker an enjoyable lead.”—Publishers Weekly

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I read these ages ago; I blew through them in a week, all eight that I possess. They're all short, punchy reads, really an afternoon's enjoyable reading and pondering.

More than anything else, the scratch the same itch as Martin Walker's Bruno series does, the desire to be taken into a place that feels charmingly unfamiliar yet guided around that place by a friendly, experienced polymath who makes us feel less...foreign...than a less cultured native's PoV would. In this story he is training a new assistant, Virgile, in the course of investigating a murder among the élite of historic winemaking center Bordeaux. That makes the emotional investment in the action so much easier; and it provides a reason for some basic questions we'd like answered to be asked.

The book offers us this explanation of the writing duo responsible for the series:

Jean-Pierre Alaux is a magazine, radio and television journalist when he is not writing novels in southwestern France. He is a genuine wine and food lover, and won the Antonin Carême prize for his cookbook La Truffe sur le Soufflé, which he wrote with the chef Alexis Pélissou. He is the grandson of a winemaker and exhibits a real passion for wine and winemaking. Coauthor of the series Noël Balen lives in Paris, where he shares his time between writing, making records, and lecturing on music. He plays bass, is a music critic and has authored a number of books about musicians in addition to his novel and short-story writing.

As is obvious from this potted biography, the duo clearly understand wine, luxury goods, and storytelling; the series was adapted to TV and was available in the US via the MHz Channel. I do not know if they are still available there; I'm disgruntled enough that the books are only available on Amazon.

Anyone wanting to escape the challenging emotional landscape of 2025 would do well to follow Benjamin and Virgile as they navigate the high-stakes world of French cultural treasures like wine, paintings, and that indefinable thing called "milieu." As cozy and escapist as a satisfying (if brief) vacation into the world of those who exist as natives in a beautiful lifestyle in a beautiful setting can be.

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DEADLY TASTING (Winemaker Detective Mysteries #4)
JEAN-PIERRE ALAUX & Noël Balen (tr. Sally Pane)
Le French Book (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: When wine tasting turns to murder.

A serial killer is on the loose in Bordeaux. A local chief detective calls wine expert Benjamin Cooker to the crime scene of a brutal murder. The killer has left a strange calling card: twelve wine glasses lined up in a semi-circle with the first one filled with wine.

Cooker is charged with the task of identifying the fabulous grand cru and is astonished by what he learns. A second victim is found, with two glasses filled. Is the killer intentionally leaving clues about his victims and his motives? Memories are jogged about the complicated history of Bordeaux during Nazi occupation. It was a dark time: weinfuhrers ruled the wine trade, while collaborationists and paramilitary organizations spread terror throughout the region.

In present-day wine country, time is running out. Will Cooker and his young assistant Virgile solve the mystery before all twelve glasses are full?

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: I missed the second and third installments when Le French Book was offering them on EW+, but in a series, that's less fatal than starting your read of it with a later book. I'd read, and really enjoyed, volume one, so I felt I could hop back into Benjamin and Virgile's milieu. Luckily I was correct.

A major subplot in this very short afternoon's amusement is Cooker the wine expert being required by his lady wife, Elisabeth, to give up wine...horror number one...and go on a cabbage diet. Bad enough already, horror number two is it's a liquidized cabbage diet.

The lady's established as a fabulous cook; his life is spent in the wine world of France; and he does not either divorce her or cheat on his diet. For seven days. True love indeed.

The murder that ignites the book is engendered in France's ugly, collaborationist past. The winemakers were, as most others were as well, getting on with their lives as the occupation wore on. Those who stood up to the vile occupiers have never stopped holding grudges. Debts are going to be called in as the time to do so grows ever shorter.

The staginess of the way the murder scenes are set-dressed makes it very clear they're not meant to be under-the-radar killings; no other reason for them to be so very obviously, unmissably, linked up. It does not lead to the immediate solution to the crimes. That was a very interesting touch to me. The collaborationists faded into the background where they could, where they were allowed to; but memories are long for betrayers of those who chose resistance.

I was more intrigued by the history than I was by the actual murders because the motive for them are so little explored; at least in Anglophone translations that make it here to the US. I'm really interested in how memory works on a cultural level. It is becoming a very great deal more relevant here in 2025 all over the world. I'm glad we have a few cultural objects around us to point out the signs of incipient rot.

I'm seeing a prose trend that could, if overused in future entries, cause me acute discomfort: there are a lot of lists (eg: "Elisabeth had cut a large head of cabbage, four slivers of garlic, six large onions, a dozen peeled tomatoes, six carrots, two green peppers, and one stalk of celery and plunged them into three quarts of water with three cubes of fat-free chicken broth. The mixture, seasoned with salt, pepper, curry powder, and parsley, had been boiled for ten minutes and then simmered until all the vegetables were tender.") in this story. A. Lot. It's not *quite* OTT yet, but could easily go there. The characters, major and minor, get reintroduced rather more elaborately than I myownself find helpful or necessary.

As of now these are grunts of annoyance. Watch this space....

ETA: I just learned that the stories in this series are novelizations of the TV show's scripts! Much is now clearer as to the way the writing sometimes does not flow in the reader's experience; try seeing them from a visual PoV and complaints are minimal. I'm so glad to find this out!

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COGNAC CONSPIRACIES (The Winemaker Detective Mysteries #5)
JEAN-PIERRE ALAUX & Noël Balen; Luc Brahe & Éric Corbeyran (tr. Sally Pane)
Le French Book (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The heirs to one of the oldest Cognac estates in France face a hostile takeover by foreign investors. Renowned wine expert Benjamin Cooker is called in to audit the books.

In what he thought was a sleepy provincial town, he is stonewalled, crosses paths with his first love, and stands up to high-level state officials keen on controlling the buyout. Meanwhile, irresistible Virgile mingles with the local population until a drowning changes the stakes.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Oh the horror! the horror! Benjamin's latest edition of his guide to wines is required to go in depth about...can he even think it!...American "wines"!

Snob.

Well, it *is* a very French series and they *are* very protective of their cultural heritage....

Virgile makes more of a splash in this entry into the series. It's odd, too, because while Benjamin drives the revelations, it's Virgile we see most of (and some of the folks of Cognac seem to want to see a lot more still). The series has multiple women as characters though it largely underuses them (slightly disappointingly it's more in the service of men than the plot, if you see what I mean, this time out). Virgile is, I hope, going to come to the fore a bit more.

Cognac, many US readers might learn for the first time, is a real place. It is so charmingly evoked in this short read that it feels more like the main character than any mere human. Benjamin is, as I guess should not shock a savvy reader, a man of Appetites and refined tastes...he reconnects with a long-ago love in this story who really seems to get him very exciteable. So to speak. It's why Virgile takes more attention, I suppose, since otherwise Elisabeth (Mme Cooker) might have problems.

I'm still barely on the good side of the list-use bubble, though sorely tried by: "He took in the scents of pear, apple, kirsch, cherry, strawberry, cranberry, fig, apricot, plum, quince, muscat, lemon, orange, grapefruit, citron, and Mirabelle plums. He wafted fragrances of violent, mint, verbena, fern, moss, anise, fennel, linden, gentian, angelica, tobacco, lavender, and mushroom, along with some spicy aromas, including cinnamon, pepper, clove, ginger, nutmeg, licorice, and saffron."

Family ties, no matter how...um...close they may be are not proof against greed and a desire to punish those you love for not being perfect. As a reason for murder, that's as old as Cain and Abel, as intense as Chinatown, and as uncomfortable as possible. Very much not my favorite read in the series.

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MAYHEM IN MARGAUX (The Winemaker Detective Series #6)
JEAN-PIERRE ALAUX & Noël Balen (tr. Sally Pane)
Le French Book (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A made-for-TV series. Gourmet sleuthing in French wine country.

Fine wines, dirty secrets. It’s summer in Bordeaux.

There’s a heat wave, the vineyards are suffering, vintners are on edge, and wine expert Benjamin Cooker’s daughter is visiting. A tragic car accident draws the Winemaker Detective and his assistant Virgile into a case where the stakes are very personal, and they uncover the dirty secrets hiding behind some of Bordeaux’s finest grand cru classé wines from Margaux.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Oh myyyy, as Takei would say, is Papa Benjamin going to go all protective dad because wounded daughter Margaux is Interested in his charming assistant Virgile?

He wouldn't be the first daddy to lose his child to his assistant's charms in all of fiction. It happened to Gamache in the Three Pines books, after all. Is Papa Benjamin only worried because his daughter, visiting from her job in New York City, is wounded in the latest affront to the wonderful world of wines and the celebration of French culture that he must solve? Or is he feeling the writing on the wall as Margaux (named after the wine, of course) shows her increasing adulthood? Either way, the car she was riding in was clearly sabotaged, and the smarmy git driving her around in it is dead.

It's business as usual in the lovely liminal world of Bordeaux's cultured elite. Virgile and Margaux aren't the first two slightly-too-close pair to get Interested in each other. They both love, in their different ways, Benjamin. They share cultural antecedents in the world of wine. Now what are they going to do with these feelings? The threat posed by whoever caused Margaux's accident can't be dismissed out of hand, despite being convenient.

The drought in this story is palpable, the wine consumption way down as a result, and some of the usual scrumptious food descriptions are instead evocations of seasonally appropriate salads that just don't have the same level of mental delight for me as a reader. I did get why the choice was made, and in the decade-plus since I read the story we've seen tragic and unprecedented fires due to drought and extreme heat in this region it's probably all anyone there actually eats anymore.

Then hot-button issues like metal screwcaps replacing traditional corks fix the story in time.It's a debate that will never really cease, but the sheer efficacy and efficiency of screwcaps have become more and more obvious, so that dated the story just a bit.

I'm rootin' for Virgile to get his wooing of Margaux off the ground. I'd like to see more of her.

THE 7TH WOMAN, CROSSING THE LINE and THE CITY OF BLOOD, Paris-set procedurals from "France's Michael Connelly" deliver the goods

THE 7TH WOMAN
FRÉDÉRIQUE MOLAY (tr. Anne Trager) (Paris Homicide #1)
Le French Book (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Winner of France's prestigious Prix du Quai des Orfèvres prize for best crime fiction, named Best Crime Fiction Novel of the Year, and already an international bestseller with over 150,000 copies sold. There's no rest for Paris's top criminal investigation division, La Crim'. Who is preying on women in the French capital? How can he kill again and again without leaving any clues? A serial killer is taking pleasure in a macabre ritual that leaves the police on tenterhooks. Chief of Police Nico Sirsky—a super cop with a modern-day real life, including an ex-wife, a teenage son and a budding love story—races against the clock to solve the murders as they get closer and closer to his inner circle. Will he resist the pressure? The story grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go until the last page, leading you behind the scenes with the French police and into the coroner’s office. It has the suspense of Seven, with CSI-like details. You will never experience Paris the same way again!

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: What makes me feel like a putz is that I haven't read this since 2014. I needed to revisit it, clearly. In the meantime, I'll offer some comments about the clear memories the story has left me with, then come back if I have more to say.

I'll tell you what I *do* remember, the way Author Molay renders the crime scenes. It's very very grim, and don't think for a second you're ready for it! I remember the way they were slaughtered vividly. The sensitive are forewarned.

Nico Sirsky, our PoV cop, is a surprisingly vivid character. I was, given the women's-body-parts nature of the killings, expecting him to be less than fully realized in the 250-ish pages we're granted. I was wrong. His ex-wife, Sylvie, has just dumped their teen son Dimitri onto his doorstep at precisely the moment Nico is falling in love with the (annoyingly perfect, if I'm honest) Caroline. The cases are all demanding his attention...the evident serial killings are urgently necessary to solve, to stop, to explain somehow...and the threats aren't just to random women.

Thanks, Sylvie, for the well-timed breakdown. Not surprisingly, this adds a lot of stress to Nico's madly stressed life. I'm pretty sure a lot of the bad stuff in the dénouement is exacerbated by Sirsky's stunningly high stress levels.

The crimes are very close to home indeed, and Nico's entire world is badly damaged by the perpetrator and reason for the killing spree.

I enjoyed very much the details of the French legal system. Author Molay has made a career of creating the procedural tales beloved of American audiences and has gifted us with a lot of our own violent tropes, "perfected" and returned. The differences are plentiful...what's an investigative magistrate when it's at home?...and there are many little moments where it's clear the translator slipped in a tidbit of Paris geography for her US audience. But there are also the deep dives into Nico's thoughts and methods. There are less successful dives into the killer's methods. (Ugh.) All the way around, the story felt to me like a French person's idea of an American procedural, explained for a French audience and then translated for an American one. The details and grace notes that would entertain a French reader do the same job on me, at least.

This is, in fact, the thing I liked best about the read. It worked on a procedural level. It worked on a novelistic level. And it gave the reader the chance to get fully involved in less book-bulk than the typical bloated four-hundred-page overstuffed story-sandwich you can't fit in your mental mouth. And still made me care about Nico, Dimitri, Caroline, and even that wretch Sylvie. One important note, besides the violence perpetrated on women by the plot's demands, is that French gender relations of a decade-plus ago were not anywhere near the levels of pre-#MeToo US gender relations. It's simply not that way, and if that isn't okay with you, don't bother to try.

It's $5 on your Kindle. Risk it! I bet most of y'all won't be a bit sorry.

***NOTE THAT ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE COULD BE A SPOILER FOR THIS BOOK.***

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CROSSING THE LINE
FRÉDÉRIQUE MOLAY (tr. Anne Trager) (Paris Homicide #2)
Le French Book (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: It's Christmas in Paris. Chief of Police Nico Sirsky returns to work after recovering from a gunshot wound. He's in love and raring to go. His first day back has him overseeing a jewel heist sting and taking on an odd investigation. Dental students discovered a message in the tooth of a severed head. Is it a sick joke? Sirsky and his team of crack homicide detectives follow the clues from an apparent suicide to an apparent accident to an all-out murder as an intricate machination starts breaking down. Just how far can despair push a man? How clear is the line between good and evil? More suspense and mystery with the Paris Homicide team from the prizewinning author Frédérique Molay, the "French Michael Connelly". This is the second in the prize-winning Paris Homicide series.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: "I was murdered" isn't something a cop expects to hear from a dismembered dead person. That's exactly what starts the machinery of a French homicide investigation moving in this exciting book. Second of Molay's "Paris Homicide" thrillers, we're more or less starting with Nico Sirsky, chief investigator from the last book, as he starts his normal day. I realize a lot of readers don't like the catch-you-up parts of procedurals, but I appreciate them...it's been most of a decade since I read The 7th Woman; no way in hell could I have recalled who these names were attached to without a refresher. I get it...I really do...lots of names, lots of titles, none of then familiar. Take your time, really best to start with The 7th Woman, but no matter what I recommend that you read slowly until they all fit into place.

They will! Paris, her police, the men and women who serve the unexpectedly dead as their interlocutors, all have a slot in Molay's stories. Something that Bruno Guedj, he of the "I was murdered" message hidden in his obviously, clumsily worked-on tooth, clearly expected to work as it always had. Donating his body to science...out of nowhere, blindsiding his wife and sons...was clearly calculated to get his message NOTICED and it worked.

The best thing about reading these books is the same thing people who enjoy Stuart Woods's Stone Barrington books, or James Patterson's Women's Murder Club books, are getting: Minimum of fussy stuff and maximum of forward momentum. Just what you want in a thriller. A bit less like those books is the way so much of the action, like press conferences and suchlike, take place off-screen. It's clear that Auteure Molay hasn't got her eye firmly set on a movie deal. One fillip in this book that I didn't care much for was the single-page chapters from the perpetrator's point of view...I didn't feel they served The Greater Good, somehow.

A great deal of the story has to do with how much Love rules our lives...Guedj, the victim, making sure his dearly and deeply loved family is cared for, and still making sure they won't be taken into dark places wondering why he died; then Nico, recovering from his nasty wounds inflicted by the killer in The 7th Woman, finally able to deal with his delight and love Caroline...his son Dimitri...all his team...Molay never forgets that the reason we read is that the characters mean something to us. I'd say that the series is a throwback to the days when 200-page thrillers were the norm. That makes the author's stakes high: must get action and character development from the off. The w-bomb dropped at 64% was an unpleasant surprise, out of keeping with the overall brisk and business-like tone. But to repeat the offense at 69%...! And then the coup de grâce at 88%, where it took me right out of a very high-stakes scene, well I ask you. Can that explain a whole star missing from the rating? You bet it can, sugarplum.

The details of Russian-descended Sirsky taking an interest in his heritage, the way this reconnects him to his teen son and his parents...all in this short word count, well, it's admirable. A note here to chuckle, albeit a bit wanly, about the pop-culture easter eggs in so many names..."Marc Walberg," "Dr. Queneau," et alii. Most amusant, Mme l'Auteure. I'm also a fan of the glimpses into the operational realities of the French justice system, the roles different people play in it, and how, like the US, so much happens due to needing to respond to the media's reporting on what has occurred.

Ending the story how, and where, she did made the underlying theme of Love, love, and luuuv as they intersect and intertwine so poignantly complete. I think the ultimate reveal is a good, solid ending. Had it not been for those blasted w-bombs there'd be four-plus stars on this outing in the "Paris Homicide" series. Molay has made a career in writing; she decided that her storytelling chops would sustain her, and I see that they truly have.

A special note of thanks to Translator Anne Trager. The careful, not-obtrusive explanations of things that wouldn't need explaining in the home audience's edition truly does help. I'd recommend that, at some point, a map of the parts of Paris we're going to be cruising through would be very helpful.

You need an exciting series, played for high stakes, and set in a lush landscape? Here it is, ready for you....

***NOTE THAT ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE COULD BE A SPOILER FOR THIS BOOK.***

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THE CITY OF BLOOD
FRÉDÉRIQUE MOLAY (tr. Jeffrey Zuckerman) (Paris Homicide #3)
Le French Book(non-affiliate Amazon link)
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: When a major Parisian modern art event gets unexpected attention on live TV, Chief of Police Nico Sirsky and his team of elite crime fighters rush to La Villette park and museum complex. On the site of the French capital's former slaughterhouses, the blood is just starting to flow, and Sirsky finds himself chasing the butcher of Paris, while his own mother faces an uncertain future.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: You know what you're in for with the Molay procedurals: Action. You're going to get action from the start and Sirsky, in charge of his usual posse of law-enforcers, is about to enter a world that scares many more than it beguiles: Fine Art. Avant gard fine art. Of the twentieth century...art that makes anti-capitalist and anti-waste statements.

See why I wanted to review this now, at this juncture?

Much more stress for poor Nico comes from his mother, a woman...barely more than a girl!...of sixty-five. There is nothing easy about parents grpwing older, and Nico Sirsky the cop knows it well. He is on the receiving end of news he usually needs to break..."we have unfortunate news about your mother"...at the same time that he and his team solve a decades-old disappearance that brought life to a halt for another mother.

It seems that the supply of sexual violence in Paris was reasonably well-capped until the Cassian exhumation. Suddenly there's so much more happening, and in the cruisy Parc de La Villette, with unknown perp(s) making their awful desires manifest in reducing young gay men to bloodless meat.

What winds through this entire book, and through all three Molay stories that I have read, is a sense of the inviolability of two things: Love and Hate. Every crime is deeply seeded with both of these things, and every time Nico and his team work on a case, it is clear that each of them has been imbued with Nico's so-Slavic sense of the duality of the world as represented by this pairing. The future is not guaranteed, not to anyone, and those who seek a guarantee before committing themselves to Life are always, always left with regrets and unhappiness.

This according exactly with my own life's course, I've got no kick with it. And the ways in which Auteure Molay makes these bones dance is always a pleasure. One of the additional joys of this story is the simple, direct path that Nico unhesitatingly follows to solve a thirty-year-old crime, one that ended more than one life. And will now end others, as there is fallout from any act of Hate committed in this world. A large thread of Nico's life is his love of his family, and his resultant willingness to put himself in the shoes of anyone who needs his professional services. It is a pleasure to read about such a fine character...as one of the bereaved says to Nico, towards the end of the story, "Maigret can sleep well, you are a worthy successor to him."

We do spend some time in the peculiarly placed gay hookup world, a thing I wouldn't've expected La Molay to give so much space to. It's not played for comedy, it's not presented as Abnormal; it's a reality, it's where the crimes committed have led; therefore, thence goes (tall, blond, blue-eyed hunk) Nico. It fails to shock me that he ends up on a gay club's dance floor....

I was a bit more shocked that Nico sought out a Russian Orthodox priest to, I suppose confide in...? He's pretty resolutely a materialist. Still and all, it was worked into the story as well as such a thing could possibly be. The artists of the 1980s and the hothouse world of Fine Art is a significant character in the tales. It isn't *explored* per se, but its limits and its passions are very much part of the reason for the crimes that are experienced in this compact, intense read.

I encourage thriller readers to check out all three of these Paris Homicide series reads. Rev up the translation-reading you do painlessly, pleasurably, and with added thrills.