Murder in the Sentier is the third Aimee Leduc novel and I am more hooked on this series than before. Aimee is smart, tenacious, and more than a little messed up due to her mother abandoning her when she was a child, as well as the death of her father before her very eyes. In this installment, she hears from a mysterious woman named Jutta who claims to not only know her mother but that they also shared a cell in the notorious Fresnes prison. This is news to Aimee as she has never learned where her mother went or what ultimately happened to her. Her father refused to discuss it and even burned or discarded all of his wifes possessions. Naturally Jutta is blackmailing Aimee, demanding money for an old notebook that belonged to her mother and though it’s money that Aimee doesn’t have (being perpetually on the brink of pennilessness) she finds a way and rushes to meet her at the appointed place. Aimee breathlessly searches the tower for Jutta, only to find that she has been shot in the head at point-blank range.
The story takes her through the seedy streets of the Sentier and among the “rag trade”, to the history of the activists in Action-Reaction (and their connnection to a Baader-Meinhof-esque German faction) and other assorted cons and mecs. This mission is a personal one, sometimes putting her at odds with her partner Rene, but she just cannot let it go. She finds evidence of a frame-up concerning her papa’s real reason for leaving the flics and what her mother really was doing all those years ago. Will she finally come face to face with her elusive mother?