I love Louise Penny’s novels set in Three Pines, but she’s just as good in Paris. In All the Devils are Here, Gamache is in Paris awaiting his newest grandchild, when his godfather is critically injured in front of him. Knowing that this was no accident, no matter how the police are handling it, Gamache, Reine Marie, and Guy Beauvoir must look into his godfather’s past and present connections to find who would want him dead.
Good read!
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Juliet Blackwell’s The Paris Showroom tells another side of World War II. Some of the targeted groups in Paris, were not sent to camps, but instead forced to work and shelter inside large department stores. There, the prisoners sort through art, furniture, and household goods; looted mostly from Jewish families when they were sent away. Capucine Benoit, imprinsoned, saved herself by connecting her father’s small feather fan business to the large fashion houses. Her estranged daughter was living with her paternal grandparents and living quite well under Nazi rule.
Different people made difficult and consequential decisions while trying to survive during this time and Blackwell’s novel highlighted an aspect that I was unaware of. Great read.
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A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins, tells about the interconnectness of strangers. A young man is killed on a houseboat and found by a nosy neighbor, who becomes invested in this crime. The young man was last seen with a troubled young woman who’s had her own interactions with the police over the years. The young man’s aunt is the only family member left to mourn him. These three women have their own secrets and own resentments towards others, but there’s a bit of unraveling to get to how they are connected and why they might be driven to murder.
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Alafair Burke’s Find Me tells about Hope Miller, a women without a past. She was found on the side of the road in an overturned vehicle with no identifications. When she awoke, she had no memories of who she was or what she was doing in the small town. The town welcomed her, but 15 years later, Hope heads out on her own to try to make it in the real world. She heads to the Hamptons but soon disappears. Her friend and police involved in a old murder case, come together to find hope and piece together her past and the connection to an old crime.
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