SethLynch

There is a nice vegetarian restaurant in The Marais, next to a Lesbian night club. We used to go to the restaurant as the other veggie place we found was seriously cramped. I haven’t been back to Paris since Minty was born and I turned Vegan. I hope to fit in a trip later this year, in the Winter, when it’s quiet. Anyway…Gary Corby, writer of the superb Pericles Commission, recommended Cara Black’s books to me. I felt a little conflicted – I’m writing about a Parisian detective and so is Cara, and she’s got the jump on me. I subscribed to a blog she contributes to: and found her pieces interesting. I still didn’t read her book. I bought it and put it on my shelf – and stared at it. It was on my To Read list but always low down. I didn’t want to admit it but I was jealous. Then I moved house and I pulled this book out of the packing box and decide to read it. I’m not jealous any more – although I should be. It was a fantastic book. Luckily I find I don’t get jealous of good writers I get jealous of the bad ones who make loads of money. I don’t know how much money Cara Black makes but what ever it is she deserves more. I haven’t order the next book yet as I’m in new kindle owner mode and book 2 isn’t available in kindle format (although later books are)Recently I read a couple of Lee Child books (review here). I enjoyed them for what they were but they weren’t my kind of book. The Murder in The Marias is my kind of book and it was every bit the thriller that Lee Child’s books are. It doesn’t come across like that from the blurb or the cover the Aimée Leduc is secretly an action hero. She scales Parisian buildings in designer suits, ducks for cover as Nazi thugs snipe at here in court yards, and she breaks into Government buildings to make use of their computer networks.This book is about Paris’ murky past – the war and collaboration. It is only since the 80′s that the French have begun to acknowledge that collaboration was widespread. The myth of the resistance held sway until then. There was a resistance of course but it was not universally supported by every man, woman, and child as de Gaul may have had you believe. The Milice were probably more zealous in their rounding up of Jews than the Gestapo in France. This book reveals some of that. It shows the collaborators who sold out friends and family and then carried on as if nothing had happened. It also shows how the ‘That was then, why go dredging it all up’ attitude is a dangerous one indeed. And whilst exploring the dark side of Paris we also explore Paris itself and for all her reluctant Action Hero antics, Aimée is a detective and this book is a detective novel.I don’t want to reveal anything about the novel which may act as a spoiler – so I won’t. The main character is well developed – although if you are more stylish than me (not possible I hear you gasp) then you may get a few more of the references. I wasn’t totally convince by the bits which were in French and then followed by their English translation. It is hard to write a book set in a foreign country when it is not written in that language. How do you remind you readers that this is not New York or London but Paris – where they speak French. I say I wasn’t convinced but I did like working out what the French meant before reading the English don’t be put off by this I am talking about 6 or 7 words every couple of pages). Again – without revealing any of the novel itself – I liked the way the ends were tied together. I liked the character of the German minister and how his previous visit had been as an SS officer. I felt the story held together well. I’ll even break my Kindle buying streak to buy the next in the series.You should go out and buy this book today you don’t even have to go out to do it – buy on line)