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    Murder in the Marais
    Murder in the Marais
    Murder in the Marais
    Audiobook12 hours

    Murder in the Marais

    Written by Cara Black

    Narrated by Carine Montbertrand

    3/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In Cara Black's "accomplished, absorbing debut" (Kirkus Reviews), PI AimEe Leduc must decrypt a digitized photo from the 1940s. But when AimEe visits the historic Jewish quarter of Paris to deliver the picture, she finds its intended recipient murdered-and with a swastika carved in her aged forehead. "Literate prose, intricate plotting, and multifaceted and unusual characters mark this excellent first mystery. Strongly recommended."-Library Journal
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMay 28, 2010
    ISBN9781449808785
    Murder in the Marais
    Author

    Cara Black

    Cara Black is the author of nineteen books in the New York Times bestselling Aimée Leduc series. She has received multiple nominations for the Anthony and Macavity Awards, and her books have been translated into German, Norwegian, Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian, and Hebrew. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and son. She can be found tweeting at @carablack.

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    Reviews for Murder in the Marais

    3/5

    363 ratings42 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Another good mystery with thrills and chases through Paris with lots of atmosphere.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Murder in the Bastille Is a quick mystery read. The setting is believable, and the investigation of the crime is interesting since the heroine, Aimee Leduc, has become blind since she was attacked in the opening of the book. Since most of the book is written from Aimee's point of view, the reader is frustrated, along with Aimee, at the hindrance that her blindness causes. Innuendo and nonverbal communication is almost completely lost, so the reader and Aimee struggle to make sense of facts and tone of voice alone. Aimee, however, is almost fearless, and her blindness only slows her down instead of stopping her completely.It is better if the reader understands a bit of French and studies the map of the Bastille included in the book prior to reading it. Ms. Black often reminds the reader that the setting is in France by dropping a French word into the dialogue or commentary of the book. Often she explains the word in context; sometimes she does not. This can slow down the read for non-French speaking people. However, the book is still enjoyable.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Writing a good mystery is harder than it looks, and I want to put as a case in point this book here. I think from a synopsis of the story - spunky woman detective and offbeat partner work to solve a murder case with strong ties both to World War II France and both neo- and classical Nazi organizations - sounds like a pretty strong frame to start on to me. And the setting of a Paris that's not the one we usually see is quite strong, too. The atmosphere of the city comes through quite nicely.However... the writing, while good particularly for the characters who are connected to the older, WWII part of the plot, is not as strong for some of the more recent characters, and particularly for the lead one. I didn't really find Aimee great, and a lot of the descriptions of her actions didn't really gel for me. Other secondary characters - let me advance Herve in particular - seemed very weak and one-dimensional to me. There's also a lot of wild plot twisting going on that I don't find totally buyable, but I suppose it is exciting enough.For me, though, I found the most frustrating thing the editing. There's a couple of mistakes that gave away the ending to me, and could not have been intended by the author. I won't quote them, because even in a review that'd be really spoiler-y, but it ruined a mystery I'm not entirely sure I would have gotten otherwise. So, negative points for professionalism there.There are enough positives that I can see how someone helping the writer smooth things out and tighten things up could lead to stronger books, but I'm not sure I'd personally be around to try them. This is most recommended for people who really like Paris, I think, and hardcore mystery fans, but otherwise, I'd probably give it a miss.
    • 4/5
      A very entertaining mystery, in general. The main detective is interesting, as are the people supporting her. My only dislike was the continued use of villainous Nazis pulled well into the future, in this case, 53 years after the end of World War II.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5


      Had a really hard time sticking with this one even though I love Paris and it was highly recommended. I really wanted to like it but didn't. May try another in the series later.
    • 3/5
      OK, it wasn't great, but it was fairly entertaining. I must admit it is unlikely that someone could vault the slate roofs of Paris in heels, but peut-etre pas impossible? One lives in hope. That said, I would not be averse to reading the next in the series.
    • 4/5
      Rereading these fun books. Great for summer, especially if you wanted to go to Paris but couldn't quite swing it this year! Plus, nice historical tidbits and views of Parisian history and politics.
    • 3/5
      I will definitely read the next book in this series that takes place in Paris. The author did a good job creating the sense of place, and the plot and characters were interesting. There were a couple of plot issues, but this was a first novel so I expect that the second book may improve in that area.
    • 3/5
      This first entry in the Aimee Leduc series was unexpectedly long (382 pages or so), and very involved with the afteraffects of WWII even though it takes place in the 1990s. Aimee is approached to deliver something to an old woman in the Marais district of Paris, but finds her freshly murdered. In attempting to identify her murdere, Aimee gets involved with both wartime history and European trade and immigrant control decisions. I found the story a bit overinflated, especially so for some characters. However, I like that the stories take place in Paris, so I will continue the series and see if the author gets better.
    • 3/5
      Murder in the Marais is the first book in the Aimee Leduc series, featuring a female private investigator who normally works on the tech investigation side. Her father, the late police chief, was killed in a terrorist attack. When a woman is found dead with a swastika carved on her forehead, a Jewish rabbi asks Aimee to take on the job. With the help of her partner, Rene, Aimee sets out to solve this horrible crime, but finds herself in an increasingly dangerous web of ancient secrets and buried war crimes.

      The book moves between present (1993) and occupied Paris during World War II. We learn how young Lili, the dead woman, stayed safe during the war, along with her friend, Sarah,, who was involved with a Nazi soldier. Today, the soldier is a diplomat, in Paris to take part in a treaty negotiation.

      This is the first book in a series so we spend a bit of time getting to know Aimee. She's tough and I wouldn't count her out in a fist fight. She can blend in with any crowd, including neo Nazi skinheads. The story was a little difficult to follow at first but once I got further in, I thought the action was nonstop. I definitely plan to try the next book in the series.
    • 4/5
      Very different, unexpected and enjoyable mystery!
    • 2/5
      Flat characters and unbelievable coincidences marred this mystery. I much preferred Sarah's Key (Tatiana de Rosnay) which deals with some of the same events.
    • 3/5
      At its best, a good alternate travel guide to the Marais. At its worst, in desperate need of a good edit. The plot over-reached but the detective's portrayal held it together mainly.
    • 3/5
      A good story, but sometimes hard to follow.
    • 4/5
      Somehow Aimée Leduc is an archetypal French woman. Breezy, stylish, skillful, thrifty, sexy, and she has a curly haired lapdog that never needs a walk. She also has a dwarf and an apartment in an ancient unheated Parisian building. If this sounds unbelievable, it is, but as we give the French as a whole a pass on this kind of stuff, we should certainly should allow Aimée to entertain us.Aimée is a trained detective who specializes in industrial espionage. She and her colleague, the dwarf René, are computer hackers who never ever do field work after some earlier exploits that are never fully explained but which left Aimée wounded. One day, though, an elderly Jewish gentleman arrives at Aimée's office and asks her to deliver an envelope to an elderly Jewish woman who lives in the Marais. (I never quite figured out why he could not do it himself.) Aimée thinks that while this job is outside her new operating parameters, the bank account is empty, the rent is due, and the taxman is calling, so she agrees to run this simple errand. When she arrives, the old woman is dead and then the old man is murdered. Aimée uses her prodigious skill set and an assortment of disguises (including posing as a neo-Nazi) to solve the murder. The murderer's identity is implausible and, like the hyper-successful continuation of the underground Nazi political cell "Werwolf" ("Werewolf" in English"), completely unneeded. Simplicity would have been better."Murder in the Marais" was published in 1998 but it is set in 1993. This date is somewhat arbitrary as Ms Black needed to find a time modern enough so Aimée could be a computer hacker but early enough that the characters in the story who were thrown together by WW2, were still young enough to be professionally active. This did not work very well, I thought, but I tend to forget how young soldiers were in WW2. Here we are told that one of the soldiers was only 18. Maybe, but it did not feel right.All in all "Murder in the Marias" is a first book and is a little rough. But it is amusing and I enjoyed it even though I rolled my eyes a bit.I received a review copy of "Murder in the Marais" by Cara Black (SoHo Press) through NetGalley.com. SoHo Crime is celebrating 25 years of publishing international crime fiction with a reading challenge. I'm reading my way through Cara Black over the next two months.
    • 5/5
      Fast-paced thriller that links to past dark days in Parisian history.A confirmed Aimee Leduc fan, this stunning mystery casts its net around the life of Aimee Leduc and draws her (and me) ever more tightly into the centre of a dark web. It starts when an elderly gentleman, with the look of a survivor searching for lost ones, presents himself at Aimee's office. He utters these words, 'I knew your father, an honourable man. He told me to come to you if I needed help.'Aimee doesn't take investigative detective work anymore, she deals in corporate security. This seems like a simply delivery, and she needs the money.Nothing is ever as it seems with Aimee. She finds herself drawn into the hunt for a killer with Nazi ties through circumstances that open her own wounds, haunted as she is by nightmares of her father's death.This time the past crawls out to confront the future as Aimee finds herself investigating the death of an old Jewish woman who'd been barely a teenager when her parents had been taken by the Gestapo, turned in by a collaborator. Lili Stein had escaped deportation to the camps when Marais had been raided during the Nazi occupation. Now that woman has been brutally murdered and bodies start to pile up, as investigations are mysteriously halted or referred to other branches of the French police and security.When the final puzzle is brought together it is chilling. The past overshadows the present, lives are turned upside down and old wounds opened and closed. Shocking events mirror each other. Why had Lili boarded up a window? Who fears exposure? Aimee is drawn into the heart of a neo-Nazi organization, dangerous and deluded, in her search for answers.Aimee finds herself in a fight for her very life, as always impeccably dressed in her designer wear. And this time it saves her life when scrabbling over rooftops pursued by an unknown assassin, 'she had to say one thing for designer wear, it held up under tough conditions.'(priceless!).This was a second read for me. It grabbed me just as much now as the first read did.A NetGalley ARC
    • 3/5
      An incredible mystery from an American who bases all of her stories on a neighborhood in Paris. There are far too many coincidences which just happen to occur such as the meeting of a German officer with his Jewish true love and the reveal that a candidate for the prime ministry is a former turncoat. The set up is not bad, and LeDuc can shoot straight and does,but this book is not believable. It is also too long.
    • 3/5
      The main premise of the story was very interesting--a murder stemming from the events of Nazi occupation in France. The emotions and trauma from this time period was very well described. I thought Cara Black captured the events and feelings very well, especially the survivor's guilt I'm sure most surviving Jews had to have felt. However, some of these emotions got lost by the rambling plotlines. Cara Black was trying to implement plot twists to capture the reader, but it just took the focus away from her original plotline which could have stood on its own perfectly. However I liked her main characters enough to continue the series and give Cara Black and Aimee Leduc another shot.
    • 4/5
      Murder in the Marais is the first Aimee Leduc mystery by Cara Black. It’s filled with the scares of modern day terrorism, the horrors of history, and the sights, smells and sounds of a Paris suburb, specifically of the Marais. There, Jewish families were once betrayed, children starved, and Nazis strode. But now, new white supremacists carry a half-blind torch for the past, and an old woman dies a gruesome death with her secrets undisclosed.Aimee Leduc is a fascinating character in her own right, with her mother’s disappearance and her father’s death offering equal depth to her skills. A wealth of disguises, smooth physical prowess, a talent for asking the right, or seriously wrong questions, and enviable computer skills, all help her with the case. Meanwhile her partner Rene surely hides many mysteries of his own.Together, the intrepid duo navigate taxes owed, dangerous allies, awkward politics, and unexpected deaths. Bullets pepper the Paris streets. The European Union advances its cause. And history tries to repeat itself. It’s heady stuff, convincingly told, with detailed facts nicely hidden in evocative description, and disparate viewpoints that gradually gel into complex threads of revelation. And it’s great fun. I’m eager to read more.Disclosure: It was a Christmas present and I offer my honest review.
    • 2/5
      2.5**

      Aimee Leduc heads the Leduc Detective Agency; she does not typically deal with criminal matters, but specializes in computer security and investigation. When a rabbi asks her to break the encryption on a 50-year-old photograph she agrees only because the old man was a friend of her father’s. However, when she goes to deliver the information to an elderly woman living the Marais (the old Jewish quarter) she finds a dead woman – strangled and with a swastika carved into her forehead.

      Nothing is as it seems and everything, and everyone, seems shrouded in mystery. Black draws on continued suspicion between the French and Germans, and bad feelings left over from the occupation during World War II. Neo-Nazi organizations just fuel the fires of resentment and promote fear and secrecy in both camps. Aimee and her trusted partner, Renee (who is a dwarf and a computer genius), must untangle numerous half-truths, untruths, and red herrings to find the solution.

      Frankly, I think Black was trying to do too much in this book. There are too many subplots and wild chases, with the result that the story line lost momentum. I do like that Aimee is a strong woman, intelligent and resourceful. She never relies on some male to save her but takes matters into her own hands. Her relationship with Renee is barely explained and not really explored. Renee has little to do, except for one or two key scenes. Her Bichon fries puppy – Miles Davis – is a totally unnecessary distraction.

      I’ve heard many good things about this series, so I will probably try at least one more Leduc mystery. I recognize the good parts of the book even though it didn’t really excite me.
    • 3/5
      Murder in the Marais is blighted by some pretty kitschy prose, lackluster to caricature-like characterization and an annoying tendency to use French terms when they don't seem needed for either establishing the setting or mood. However, it is saved by the development of a couple of the characters (I hesitate to saw more because of not wanting to give away any thing) and the suspense. Granted it was pretty obvious who the murderer was by page 77,but kenning how it was going to play out, who was working for whom, and how it all tied back to the Nazi Occupation was fun, as was the moody use of the city of Paris. Granted based on this book alone I would never want to go there as it seems persistently damp, mouldy, drafty and run down. Other than the mentions of rather luscious foods and the possibility of turning up Hermes scarfs at the flea market, one cannot find much gay about gay Paris in this thriller. At first the detective Aimee LeDuc was a flimsy character, but gained some credibility as the novel developed, so I might read others in the series.
    • 3/5
      This was a difficult read. Part of the problem was the many references to streets and districts in Paris. Since I have never been there, most of them were lost on me. If you have been to Paris or are familiar with the city, you will probably enjoy this aspect of the book.

      Another problem was the number of characters and how often they jump into the story briefly. At one point I had to go back an restart the book because I kept losing track of who these characters were and their relationship to the main character and the story.

      Finally, the writing seemed choppy. There were several places where the story seemed to jump from one point to another with no connection.

      Given all this, I thought the mystery itself was well crafted. I will try the next one in the series.

    • 4/5
      I had mixed feelings about this mystery set in Paris, the first in the Aimee Leduc series. Leduc investigates computer crimes but she's asked to investigate a World War 2 era photo. There's the murder of a Jewish woman and lots of plot points with ties to Nazi Germany. It's right in my wheelhouse and I should've loved it.In the end, I liked it but the first two thirds of the book were extremely slow, though things really picked up after that. Far too many plot points. Far too many undeveloped characters.And yet, in the end, it was a good story. I liked it well enough to continue with the series, at least for one more book. It's a long-running series so perhaps things really improve.
    • 2/5
      I found that this was over-plotted with an enormous number of characters and subplots which had odd jumps in continuity. When investigator Aimée Leduc interviews a key figure about half way through the book (Wednesday morning) I had no idea where that lead had even come from. When one of the big bad's henchman pops up towards the end I had no recollection where they had appeared previously. That is aside from some of the other absurd situations (a rooftop escape in designer high-heels) and interactions (Leduc has a few romantic liaisons with a seemingly completely inappropriate character) that the characters go through which you can somewhat forgive from an author providing entertainment.I was plodding through this very slowly for about 2/3rds of the way until the story did finally start to take off and i did finish it quite quickly then but am not likely to try another one.This was another reminder not to trust author blurbs, even from someone like Lee Child, whose sense of suspense I normally respect quite highly. His blurb of "One of the BEST heroines in crime fiction" sold me on this book and I feel quite betrayed by that as I had hoped this might be a new favourite series, especially with its Paris locale which is normally one of my favourites.The plot involves private investigator Aimée Leduc and her partner René Friant getting involved with a murder that turns out to be related to French collaborators with the Nazis in WWII. Dealings with the Jewish community in the Marais area of Paris, present-day international trade negotiations with nefarious subclauses and a neo-Nazi white power group are along to complicate the situation. In the end this all actually came together but not with any satisfaction for this reader.
    • 3/5
      Not a bad read, there were times when I enjoyed it wholeheartedly but there were times when I felt that it slowed down or was a bit scant in details I didn't really feel a connection to the characters and it felt more like an intellectual exercise than immersive mystery.

      Aimee Leduc is a half-French, half-American detective working in Paris, trying hard to make ends meet and sometimes succeeding. She gets caught up in New-Nazis in Paris when she decrypts an World War II photograph and brings it to a old woman that she then finds dead, with a Swastika carved in her forehead, this leads her down paths she would rather not get involved in but her reputation and life are on the line.

      Shows promise.
    • 2/5
      This was an assigned February reading for a Mystery Readers group I just joined. The fast-paced plot kept me reading to the end, but the implausibilities are a bit too much, and the character development is shallow. Bringing in WWII, the Holocaust, and French collaborators, then throwing into the mix neo-Nazis and the emerging French anti-immigrant sentiment, it all seems to be thrown in haphazardly in an effort to propel the action.
    • 2/5
      This book is the first novel in a series about Aimee Leduc a French private investigator who takes over her father's agency after he's killed in a terrorist attack. For the most part she is a computer investigator, but when asked by Jewish survivor of the Holocaust she agrees to look into look into a “decoding job” on behalf of a woman in his synagogue (in the Paris neighborhood of the Marais—the historic Jewish quarter). When Aimee drops off her findings, she finds the old woman strangled, a swastika carved on her forehead. With the help of her partner, René, Aimée sets out to solve this crime—and soon finds herself immersed in WWII deportation of Jews, French collaborators, and neo-Nazis. The book is a run of the mill mystery—nothing too surprising. You would think in the first of the series it would give a little more background on the main characters—but I have very little knowledge of Aimee or her partner Rene. The author does give a nice overview of Paris—particularly of the Marais neighborhood—which I did enjoy. I am not sure this is a series that I will stick with. A 2 out of 5 stars.
    • 4/5
      Cara Black is guaranteed to satisfy any nostalgia you may have for Paris. Main character Aimee Leduc is usually fun to follow as she solves quite complex murders. This time there is a more serious undertone as the SS deportation of French Jews in the Second World War is the basis of the plot. As a result, this is a more serious, sombre novel as it explores horrifying events and their ongoing consequences for modern France . Nevertheless, Aimee flaunts many a French icon on her body - Hermes scarves etc, and her travels take her around every location in Pars you may recall.
    • 2/5
      Sadly disappointing. I had heard that this was an atmospheric detective novel set in one of my (everyone’s?) favourite cities, and had hopes for it. But it’s an action genre novel with characters of little depth who exist primarily to push the plot from one improbable point to another. It’s set in the Marais, and refers to many sites and buildings that are fond recollections, but they are used as little more than flat background. They don’t add atmosphere, just setting. The neo-Nazi plot could have been intriguing, but again it’s just a plot device in which some bad guys play, and is no more illuminating than the crime scenes in a gangster novel. There’s no emotional involvement in the characters because they are too limited, and even the attempts to give them a back-story don’t go anywhere. The final confrontation is so absurd, with literally a Deus ex machina resolution, that I had to wonder if the author was having a sly chuckle with us about the conventions of the made-for-tv novel. But I think not – it’s more like the hopeful scenario for a series that the author wants to sell to a movie or television production company. Perhaps I was expecting too much – this isn’t Victor Hugo, although it is set in his city (and home) – but I’m not drawn to try her other novels.
    • 4/5
      I liked this book, but I didn't love it. I love the locations and the mystery was fairly interesting. I'm not so crazy about Aimee Leduc, although I have no specific reason why. Perhaps too young for me to appreciate? I'm not sure.