Murder in the Bastille (Aimee Leduc Investigations, No. 4)

I enjoy listening to the Cara Black books and reading them to hone my french and take a walk or a wild ride thru Paris depending on what our heroine is up too. The French pronunciations are impeccible and her English is far better than my French! The books do become predictable....you will hear about her chipped nail polish in every book(A few times was ok but ditch it now!) and her penchant for used designer clothes( I do enjoy this bit). But on the whole fun read/listen.

The Aimee Leduc series is one of all my time favourites. I have read all of the books and just downloaded the latest which I am saving as once I start I cannot stop. I love the way each story is set in a different district of Paris, as you learn the history of the area as the story-lines interweave with the history of the city. I absolutely love this series and feel like the characters are long lost friends!

Although I enjoy Aimee Leduc’s adventures, her accidental, maybe, means of being drawn into the book’s mystery and her physical trauma are over the top. Putting aside these occurrences, the fast pace of the plots’ developments. makes this a gripping thriller.

I started reading this series because it is set in Paris, France one of my favorite cities in the world. Each book is set in a different area in Paris and the author does a fantastic job of bringing each area to life with details specific to each. I enjoy the Aimee Leduc character as she is brave and funny.

It took me forever to finish this mystery that seemed to have promises, at least at the beginning. Was I seduced by the Paris evocations that seemed to avoid cliches and went instead to narrower and darker streets? There might be that. There are also the French words and expressions, fairly current, which pop out here like mushrooms. French expressions in American novels are not always used wisely, or when they are, there is always that annoying spelling or grammar mistake. Cara Black appears more careful, at least in the first half of the novel. And the errors that come out later are minor. But that is all for the seduction part. The plot itself goes all over the place while the pace drags. Detective Aimée Leduc loses her sight, but my own sense of empathy gets paralyzed. I really don't give a damn. And this, despite the fact that one very influential person in my life was a blind uncle with whom I used to take long walks when I was a child. As for the terrifying Beast of the Bastille, he seems plastered on the decor like some horror movie poster from the 1940's. The investigation is handled by a bunch of scattered investigators, either private detectives or cops ("les flics"), mostly ineffective. Too many flics spoil the soup. Finally, all these narrow passages and streets that had their charm in the beginning start to resemble each other in the end. I no longer recognize Paris. Where on earth is the City of Light? No abundance of gallic expressions, no simple enumeration of street names will recreate a Parisian atmosphere. There is a special rhythm in Paris, or a variety of rhythms, a mix of sass and poetry. After a high traffic boulevard your steps may land on some pocket of quiet. A little further, you may struggle in a walking crowd until the city airs itself again. The Seine, Paris' main artery, is the city's magic mirror. I get little of that here. I get names, listings. Even characters feel like listings. And the few who are fleshed out appear boneless. As for the ones with a skeleton in their closet, they are simply soporific. This is my first experience with a Cara Black novel, and probably my last. I don't find her characters appealing, with the exception of little person René, a computer genius who is also Aimée's colleague and best friend. Besides the few elements mentioned at the beginning of this review, he is about the only redeeming factor in this novel.

Love the series - love Aimee, Rene. Each book offers a bit more info and a more experience with Aimee as she faces mysteries and challenges with boldness and grace. This book offers her a particular challenge with her own abilities. I like the fact that, while this is a beloved series, there is always growth in the characters - and often we see those around the main characters grappling with their own issues and learning more by the end. This book allows us to witness changes in perceptions about others, about what disabilities are, and I loved it. I'm reading more and I hope to see more and more of Rene - he may be Aimee's true soul mate.

Aimee is deep with this one, but perseveres as usual. Being blind and depending on others to help her does not sit well - she usually self reliant and self-actualized - driven to prove herself to finds and Flics alike. Loved this as I do all of the series. As I have been telling friends, if you can't get to Paris just now, let Cara Black take you there.

I'm a mystery-lover and a Paris-lover...how could I go wrong? I really like the attention paid to the surroundings, ie., streets, buildings, etc. I can imagine them in my "mind's eye" while reading. It adds a lot of atmosphere to the stories! I still have about a half-dozen of these books to read, and am "rationing" them out to make them last longer! Not necessarily great literature, but very good (and I do not take violence or gore very well - these are pretty easy to enjoy, because of that factor).

If you know French and love Paris - probably a good book for you. I don't, so found it hard going.

AAA

Murder in the Bastille by Cara Black is one of a series of go-to books to evoke the City of Light. The author sets Aimée Leduc, sleuth and forensic computer hack, in different arrondissements around the city as she faces innumerable murders that need solving. The flics are inevitably outwitted by this sassy young woman, whose father was a policeman, killed in a terrorist bombing. Through his work associates, she can call on the input of his former colleagues, although they do have their idionsyncracies.So, to the plot of this novel set in the Bastille. As the book opens Aimée is having a business dinner, seated next to a woman who happens to be wearing the same Chinese jacket. As she leaves the restaurant, their identities are confused, and Aimée is attacked and left for dead. The other woman is attacked and killed shortly thereafter. The notion of “scratch the Paris dirt and find a body” both past and present seems to be a rather true observation….Both attack and killing are attributed to the Beast of the Bastille, a notorious killer of women, but Aimée has other ideas. And despite an infirmity sustained during the attack at the beginning, she valiantly ploughs on with her investigations with the help of her short sidekick René. Wonderfully observed for locale (loved that she had drinks in a bar on the Boulevard Richard Lenoir, near where we were staying and I pinpointed what I imagined to be the bar!). There is a lot of mayhem as the story progresses, a big rig overturns on the Periphérique, a TGV crashes, there are mad cap dashes across the city, it’s entertaining; and the Bastille, the “cradle of revolutions, mother of street-fighters and artisans” certainly gets a good look-in.

What a load of pretentious nonsense! I bought this book as I heard someone answering questions on the author on Mastermind. I really had to struggle to get through it. Hard to think of a more two dimensional lead character in crime fiction as Aimee Leduc.