This is the latest in the series by Paul Grossman about the famous and highly respected German homicide detective Willi Kraus. Over the course of Grossman’s several earlier books which I’ve reviewed, the thuggish fringe National Socialist movement grows into the terrifying Nazi juggernaut which destroys the Germany Kraus has known and loved, and soon drives German Jews—himself and his family included—into exile. As one of the last to flee before all escape hatches were slammed shut, the widowed Kraus arrives in Paris without belongings, […]
If Wes Anderson were to pen a novel
The Elegance of the Hedgehog is just waiting for its Wes Anderson adaptation. The whole way through I felt like I was reading one of his movies. The characters were almost distractingly whimsical, more caricatures than real people, and it took me a while to get into this book. About 80 pages in I finally found my stride, which was helped by a strong commitment to suspension of disbelief, and I was hooked. This book follows two protagonist: a precocious and suicidal young girl and […]
Once again, Laura Florand makes me want to gorge on gourmet chocolate
Growing up in the very rough suburbs to Paris, Célie was always determined to make something of herself, unlike her drug-dealing low-life of an older brother. Apprenticing herself to a baker, the brightest part of her day was always when her brother’s friend Joss came to walk her home. Pretty much at the moment Célie had worked up the courage to confess her massive crush on him, Joss broke her heart into a million pieces by going off to join the French foreign legion. Five […]
A French mystery that dabbles in immigration issues and murder
Intrepid Parisian detective Aimee Leduc is back with another murder to solve, and it takes place in Belleville, a heavily Arab neighborhood rife with tension, mystery, violence and pathos. Leduc has been asked by the sister of her best friend to help her. The sister is married to a government minister and Aimee had actually attended their wedding several years earlier. Now, the sister suspects her husband of straying and wants Aimee to intervene. But when Aimee, a software specialist, reluctantly agrees to meet Anais […]
Nazi Hunting in High Places
This debut novel by author Cara Black centers around her heroine Aimee Leduc, a French female private eye who gets mixed up with violent neo-Nazi skinheads, Jewish survivors of the holocaust, and a secret Nazi organization which is staging a comeback and whose tentacles reach into the highest offices in Europe. The author’s scope is ambitious, her history fascinating, her writing is evocative, and I give her extra kudos for creating a female PI when the genre is so male-centric. But her novel’s biggest weakness, […]
A picture is worth a thousand words
It seems ironic to choose this cliched aphorism as a title to compliment a book, but Anna Gavalda wrote this novel as if she were painting. Hunting and Gathering has, ostensibly, no plot; it’s a character piece, a window into the lives of four main characters living together in Paris over the course of a few months, and a loving observation of their relationships and effects on each other. One of the main characters, Camille, is, herself, a painter. She’s very talented, and her portraits are […]
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