Murder in the Bastille

Aimee Leduc Investigations #4

by Cara Black

Parisian P.I. Aimée Leduc is attacked and blinded during an investigation. Can she solve her case without her sight—and when her own life is in danger?

Aimée Leduc is all dressed up in her new Chinese silk jacket, supposedly an "exclusive," for dinner with a difficult client at an elegant restaurant in the Bastille district. She is chagrined to see that the woman seated at the very next table is wearing an identical jacket. When the woman leaves her cell phone on the table, Aimée follows her to return it and is attacked in the shadowy Passage Boule Blanche. When she regains consciousness, Aimée finds that she is blind. Nevertheless, she is told she is lucky; the woman she was following was found in the next passage, murdered.

Aimée is determined to identify her attacker. Was he actually a serial killer targeting showy blondes as the police insist? Was he really after the other woman? Or was Aimée his intended victim?

Alternate cover edition for ISBN: 9781569473641

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, France, Crime, Mystery Thriller, Detective, Audiobook

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Cara Black frequents a Paris little known outside the beaten tourist track. A Paris she discovers on research trips and interviews with French police, private detectives and café owners. She lives in San Francisco with her husband, a bookseller, and their teenage son. She is a San Francisco Library Laureate and a member of the Paris Sociéte Historique in the Marais. Her nationally bestselling and award nominated Aimée Leduc Investigation series has been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, German and Hebrew. She received the Medaille de la Ville de Paris for services to French culture. She's included in the GREAT WOMEN MYSTERY WRITERS by Elizabeth Lindsay 2nd editon published in the UK. Her first three novels in the series MURDER IN THE MARAIS, MURDER IN BELLEVILLE AN MURDER IN THE SENTIER - nominated for an Anthony Award as Best Novel - were published in the UK in 2008 and MURDER IN THE LATIN QUARTER comes out in the UK in 2010. Several of her books have been chosen as BookSense Picks and INDIE NEXT choice by the Amerian Association of Independent Bookstores. The Washington Post listed MURDER IN THE RUE DE PARADIS in the Best Fiction Choices of 2008. MURDER IN THE LATIN QUARTER is a finalist for Best Novel Award from the NCIBA Northern California Independent Booksellers Association.

She is currently working on the next book in the Aimée Leduc series.

Reviews

[Terri Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this 4th book in Cara Black's Aimee Leduc series set in 1990's Paris.

Private investigator Aimee is wearing her brand new Chinese jacket at dinner in a snazzy restaurant, trying to convince her client Vincent that he must hand over his hard drive when the government demands it for their investigation. The blonde at the next table not only has the same jacket but the entire matching outfit (Aimee had been told by the boutique owner that it was a one-of-a-kind outfit but could only afford the jacket)and is sitting there blabbing on her cell phone.

The meeting ends when Vincent rips up his contract with Leduc Detective Agency and storms out. The woman at the next table has also left but her cell phone is still there. Aimee tries to turn it in to the staff but they don't want to be bothered. Instead of leaving it with the staff, Aimee answers it when it rings, hears a cryptic message to meet a man in an alley, then decides to carry the phone and give it to the man. Who but Aimee would do something so ridiculous?

It was indeed a foolish thing to do. Before the night is over, Aimee is strangled and beaten until she has a concussion and her optic nerve is damaged, a weak blood vessel in her head breaks and she must have emergency brain surgery and is left totally blind while the woman from the next table, a journalist who uncovered something someone does not want investigated is found murdered and left in a garbage can on the next block.

I enjoyed seeing the always ultra-independent Aimee have to face the fact that she is blind and maneuver in the seeing world. She is scared, embarrassed and clumsy but determined to find out who did this to her and who murdered Josiane, the reporter. In one scene she is brutally attacked at the hospital residence and has to face the attacker without being able to see him.

That said, I have to add that the way Aimee was treated by others, including more experienced blind people, was not the way I have seen it done before. Most blind people are not taken somewhere the day they became blind and just left on the city streets or expected to memorize their way to and fro on just one trip.

I also loved how her business partner Rene Friant, a dwarf who is a computer genius, is featured more in this book. His health and physical challenges as a dwarf sharply contrasts with the brilliance of his mind. We even see a twinge of desire to be more than business partners with Aimee who , of course, continues (even blind) to be interested in the wrong men. In this, she is blind even when she can see.

Another story line I really enjoyed here is hard-nosed flic (cop) Loic Bellan facing the fact that his wife adores their baby son Guilluame who was just born with Down syndrome and has no intention of having him locked away in an institution somewhere. Bellan is very bigoted towards the baby though he has a fascination with his tiny little pink baby toes. When he goes berserk with his wife Marie, she packs up the baby and their two older daughters and goes to stay with her parents. When the baby becomes sick and must be hospitalized, he goes to Marie's side. During the course of the investigation, it is a teenage boy with Down syndrome who gives him much needed info and he feels shame for the first time at his bigotry.

Rene does a lot more of the footwork in this book which both excites and challenges him. He learns what he is made of as does Aimee as she faces her limitations.

I want to add a special note here. I notice that a number of people have made a point of criticizing the use of cell phones in this book and complain that certain computer programs were not in common use in the 1990's. Let me just say that I was using a cell phone (including in Paris) in 1993-94 and was using computers in 1989. Among people who could afford it, business people, government agencies, private detectives, etc people DID use such software and computers and cell phones. Those writing disparaging remarks about the author and the books may be ignorant of that fact but need to realize they might not know everything. Just because they or their friends didn't do something does not mean others did not. In fact, the French has the birth control pill and the abortion pill more than a decade BEFORE they were available in the USA so it is unwise to presume that things in another country are the same as they are in the USA.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really, 3 and a half. . .

Great story, really grabs you in the beginning. The only problem was Aimee was a little more mobile that I thought believable, and the ending was a little quickly wrapped up leaving a few too many ends untied. I know Ms. Black links her books together, but this one seemed more like the book really wasn't quite finished. Do have to admit I liked the twist with Bellan. . . very nice!

[Lewis Weinstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well developed story wonderfully set in a part of Paris tourists never see. Private investigator Aimee Leduc and her partner Rene are interesting and smart but not without flaws. The mystery itself was unfolded in a credible way that maintained tension all the way through. The only part I didn't like was the very last page, where I thought the story was cut off too quickly.

A fascinating part of this story is that Aimee is attacked on the first pages and goes blind as a result. Thus the whole story is told from the perspective of a blind person who is terrified but goes on, hoping her sight will return. Several times I closed my eyes to try to imagine what it would be like. How do blind people do it? You will learn much of the answer in this book.

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

While meeting with a client at a trendy Bastille area restaurant, she notices to her chagrin - and anger - that the one of a kind silk jacket she's wearing is also being worn by the woman sitting next to her. When the woman leaves her phone behind as she departs, Aimee follows her to return it, only to be attacked and left seriously injured, left blinded. Aimee then learns from the police that the woman she followed was found murdered in the next passage over. The police claim the murder matches the pattern of a serial killer called the Beast of Bastille, who had been let out of prison on a technicality. The police claim she was a lucky escapee from a serial killer. She knows better.

I have to applaud Cara Black for originality in not just blinding her MC, but also with the interesting and intricate plot and use of the setting. It's the mid-1990s and like the nearby Marais area, the Bastille is also going through gentrification. The gauche caviar (a/k/a Limousine Liberals) hare moving in and buying up the converted manufacturing and craftsman workshops for lofts housing advertising agencies, trendy fashion houses, and even homes. With so much money to be made, developers take vicious shortcuts to obtain vacant properties. And the passages and interconnected ancient subterranean areas become the locales of criminal activity. Since the police accept the expeditious solution of the serial killer, Aimee finds herself with her partner Rene's help, blindly investigating on her own - literally.

This is the 4th in the Aimee LeDuc series, and the first where we really learn more about her partner Rene's background and challenges.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book number 4 of the Aimee Leduc Investigation series and I am still a fan. In this book Aimee is blinded when she is attacked in the Passage Boule Blanche. Mistaken for another young woman who is also attacked and killed, Aimee and Josiane are believed to be the final victims of the serial killer, The Beast of Bastille. However, Aimee isn't convinced and sight or no sight she isn't about to let the flics or her godfather Commissaire Morbier, write this attack off and file it away, just to keep the higher ups happy.

Aimee finds she must rely a bit more on her partner Rene, which is hard for the extremely independent and self-reliant Aimee Leduc, but there could be the start of a new romance and finding her way around Paris by sound alone is proving a challenge Aimee may have to face longer them she hoped.

You can tell Cara Black has been doing her research for these books in Paris, you really get the feel and in this book the sounds of each district she writes about. The plots are always so well matche to the parts of Paris she is featuring in each book. I can't wait until my next "trip" to Paris to see what happens.

[Robert Downey · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bored. I chose the book after reading the Cara Black article in Bookmarks and thought that her writing about the different arrondissements "schtick" would be fun, but the descriptions are thrown in and feel forced. Just giving me a mini history lesson and using French proper nouns doesn't help me see a place that I've never been to. The plot seemed to jump around a lot, too, with characters coming and going without much in the way of transitional sentences or paragraphs. In my opinion, she has a choppy, narrative style that doesn't flow - except when there's dialogue. The characters felt real because of their conversations. I finished it only because my book club friend and I were reading it together; otherwise, I would have left Aimee feeling her way around Paris in the dark.

[Colin Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

The concept of this series is good however the execution of this one it not so good. Aimee and Renee are still working away with their computer security business while Aimee doubles as a sleuth. This story line has Aimee attacked and left for death but she comes round to find herself blind. The story then jumps about and becomes difficult to follow not least because Aimee is within days running around with a white stick. A little unrealistic as are her abilities to track down the villain and fall in love with the doctor.

Had the makings of a very good story that was not developed so well. Begining to think I may not persevere with this series.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This episode of the Aimee Leduc saga is set before "Murder on the Ile-Saint-Louis," but it doesn't matter. And, for some inexplicable reason, the events take place in the fall of 1994. If one really knows the Bastille area, that may be important. For those of us without a street-by-street and building-by-building knowledge of the quartier, the date only matters because everything is in francs rather than euros. It also seems slightly anachronistic to have a plot set in 1994 hinge on cell phone use.

The action begins quickly when Aimee is attacked and blinded, probably because she has the intended victim's cell phone. While Aimee tries to cope with the possibility that she may never regain her sight, she and her partner work to identify the attacker. This is made more difficult by the fact that the police have blamed a serial killer, now dead, and closed the case. The interest of this novel lies in watching Aimee and Rene follow leads and put together the seemingly unrelated facts they discover. They are both likable and their partnership seems real. And, eventually, all the various threads come together.

One would think that another plus would be the Parisian setting, but the author doesn't really have a gift for making a place come to life. Those who know and love Paris can supply their own atmosphere and relish the setting; I doubt that others will find the Paris of the novel any different from any other older city.

In fact, Aimee herself doesn't seem particularly French. Perhaps the author believes that this is explained by Aimee's American mother, but she disappeared when Aimee was very young. Aimee was brought up and educated in France; it seems odd that her cultural references for blindness are Helen Keller and Audrey Hepburn in "Wait until Dark." Wouldn't she think first of Monet or, perhaps, Louis Braille himself?

[Tripfiction · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sleuthing in the Bastille, PARIS

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.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Where to begin?
I did not like this book at all, but I struggled through and finished it, because I didn't have anything else to read.
I have only read the first Aimee Leduc and remembered Aimee's unbelievable physical fights and death-defying experiences. This book has many of those dramatic episodes, but she's carrying on with them while BLIND. (Aimee also manages to run computer programs and navigate city streets without vision.)
The end of the book makes absolutely no sense, introducing a plot twist that is so unpredictable that I felt cheated. The loose ends are infinite and I could not have been more disppointed.

[Margaret · Rating 2 out of 5]

Evocation of Parisian places, and the colour and feel of a neighborhood, wonderful. Characters were far to thick on the ground, and thinly drawn, and the plausibility of the central character's functioning so well after major surgery and blindness, was low.

[Margaret Dee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This series improves with each new book. An interesting twist to this story.

[Suzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maybe 3 1/2

I read this book, the 4th in the Aimee Leduc series, right after coming back from a vacation in Paris where we stayed in the Bastille. I previously had only read Murder in Le Marais, the first of the series.I liked this book even better; the story propelled me along and most of the places described were all within a few blocks of our apartment. That added a fun element as I could picture the story as it unfolded! Not sure, though, if someone who hadn't been to Paris would have the same sense of the neighborhood. Aimee is a quirky, rough-and-tumble personality who gets herself into and out of scrapes, this time while blind. She was blinded at the beginning of the book and to compensate, her sidekick Rene steps in and does much of the sleuthing for her.

These books are atmospheric, filled with interesting characters, one of which is the neighborhood. I would give Murder in the Bastille a higher rating except that the ending felt abrupt and contrived and the murder mystery hinged on cell phones, even though this was set in 1994. I like the idea of each book in the series taking place in a different Paris neighborhood, so I'll definitely give others a whirl.

[Catherine Mustread · Rating 3 out of 5]

#4 in the Aimee Ledue Investigations series which get easier to read and more enthralling with each book. Black's style of switching POV from character to character seems less confusing and more enlightening when you know that she is offering pieces of the puzzle which don't yet fit into the picture. The seemingly authentic look at the underside of Paris is also fascinating. Aimee's injury at the beginning also makes this more interesting.

I was surprised at the ending, and a bit lost about how it all fit together, but probably because I was distracted by other things going on in my life during the last half of the book. I need to make a cheat-sheet of characters on my 3x5 card/bookmark. Hope to start, #5, Murder in Clichy, soon, and find out what will happen in Aimee's life next.

[Elli · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is #4 in the Aimee Leduc series, and as usual, I enjoyed it. Her presentations of the various sections of Paris and their history as well as what did happen there and what has been happening there are such that you almost feel a part of the city The main characters are Aimee and her partner, Rene. Usually Aimee does the straight detective and Rene, the computer aspect which is wide, but this gets turned around in this book when Aimee is attacked and is left blind. Her whole attitude towards life is changed from this experience as she has to learn to cope with it. And Rene certainly is not used to going out on his own to ferret information. A side light, but I think an important one is when one of the detectives whom Aimee has had much contact with in the past finds himself the father of a downs syndrome child, very difficult to put up with, let alone accept. And then he, ion the course of his investigation finds that a downs teenager helps him to find what he needs to be able to crack his part of the case! A very interesting and worthwhile read!

[Susann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another leave-behind book that I bought real cheap for my trip, but ultimately finished at home. It's too bad I didn't finish it over there, because I would have been happy to leave it behind. The book is part of a mystery series set in Paris and I found the characters and the mystery itself interesting.

BUT - it is set in 1994 and the entire plot hinges on everyone using cell phones. The author also made reference to Internet technologies that were not in common use at the time. These anachronisms always bug me, and I just couldn't get past them. Get your details straight, Ms. Black!

In other plot point (this is not a spoiler, I promise), Aimee's partner finds an important clue in the afternoon. But he waits a full 24 hours before alerting Aimee. He has no reason for doing so; it's clear that Black simply couldn't find a way (or couldn't be bothered) to construct her plot events in a realistic sequence.

[Phoebe · Rating 3 out of 5]

As far as this series goes, I've read #1, then #11, and now #4. Of course, I'd much rather have read them in order but the library doesn't have e-copies of #2 and #3 for some reason.

In any event, I liked this installment. It wasn't as predictable as #11 (still predictable, just not as much), but the geographical, historical and cultural insights into Parisian life are just as good, if not better. The narrative voice switches between two or three other characters. Bellan's point of view doesn't really further the main storyline, but I think it's worth the chance to see his internal struggles and transformation. It ends kind of abruptly, but I think the others might have too. I have to say, I liked reading the French phrases here and there (especially "Merde!" and "salope," lol) because they remind me that everything is really happening in French even though I'm reading it in English.

Format: Kindle AZW, San Francisco Library

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I needed something fluffy and easy and fun. This book really worked! I have read previous LeDuc novels, and after the last was a bit sick of the similarities of them. However, I clearly let enough time pass before reading this one. It was terrific. While it did have some of the same old plot devices (really--home many times can Amy be outrun because she is wearing heels on cobblestones? how many times will she duck into the dark alley's of Paris before she learns--maybe it is better to do that tomorrow?).

Anyway--in this story, Amy goes blind and it made all the difference. I learned more about Amy and Rene, the detective agency, and their current lives in this book than in the last three combined. It was nice--I want to know more about these characters. Yes, Amy's past (and that of her parents) informs who she is, but it is all we have known about her. I hope the next in the series is as satisfying as this was.

[Lynne-marie · Rating 1 out of 5]

When I read the list of suthor's thanks in the beginning of the book and saw one that included Guided-Dogs For the Blind, I suspected that a character in the mystery would be blind . . . but never that it would be Aimee herself!! Oh, no!! By now, book four, I'm attached to the Parisian gutter rat and her ironique ways so when she is blinded in a savage attack, I was shocked. That she continued her investigation in spite of her blindness should not have surprised me at all, any more than it did her partner, Rene, the dwarf, or the Commisariat du Police, who just could't quite grasp it by any means. But Aimee's hard head wins out over all, is that a plot give away? You should really read it and see why trying to be fashionable can get you killed, almost.

[The Library Lady · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every one of the Aimee Leduc books has an intricate plot set in a different part of Paris, vivid description and dialogue that brings that part of the city alive, and for some reason, endings that never resolve in a way that leaves me satisfied.

This one does have some especially good plotting. Aimee is blinded in an attack and her slow adjustment to what is possibly a permanent condition adds depth to her character. As a result, despite yet another jumped up conclusion,4 stars rather than the 3 I have given the previous titles.

[Malia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first book I have read by this author and I didn't realize it was #4 in a series. I picked it up because the setting is in a part of Paris that I love. She did a great job of capturing the beauty of Paris and made me miss my home there.

As for the plot, it grabbed my attention and I loved the personalities she gave her characters. I don't feel like I missed much of the back story by starting with #4, but it might have helped add some substance to the secondary characters.

Overall, a fun read.

[Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

I want to like this series more than I do. The protagonist is engaging, the plot line interesting. And Paris. But the ending of this book just collapses in on itself. An interesting story jumbles up, and I was left going, “Who even is that?” And then it was over — not even the briefest recapitulation. And a major plot line was left hanging. I really wanted to know how this all resolved, but I don’t know that I’ll invest the time to read the next one to see if questions are answered there. Zut.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the first of the "Murder in..." series that I've read and I enjoyed it immensely. PI Aimée Leduc is supposed to work cases from the computer-end of things. However, she always gets pulled into the middle of a maelstrom, fighting both the bad guys and often, the police as well. The series setting is always a specific geographical area of Paris in the 1990s. Author Black has a very good feel for the place and her spot on details make you feel like you are really there.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Rene plays a much larger role which allows us to learn more about him and to see Aimee through his eyes. I feel like I got to know them both better.

Aimee losing her sight is such an interesting and unique twist. She is no longer the fearless detective. She is vulnerable and it only makes her personality more interesting and complex.

I can't wait to continue with this series. It's a fun escape and always makes me want to wear bright red Chanel lipstick.

[Thomas Fortenberry · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of the Aimee Leduc series I have ever read. Very interesting contrast to te St-Cyr-Kohler mysteries, as both are set in France. To read of Aimee's modern day Paris in direct contrast to Sty-Cyr's Nazi Occuppied France is amazing. Great time reading these simultaneously. I will have to check out the rest of the Aimee Leduc Investigations.

[Monty · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of my favorites of the Aimee Leduc series so far. Of course there is the usual trying to quit smoking, trying to pay the bills, getting seriously injured more than once and more. And the story on this one had many twists and turns with much adventure and tension. I am eager to read the next installment to follow Aimee's recovery from her injuries.

[Jehnie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the series. But I found this book to have too much implied and not enough stated. The mystery was resolved but there were a lot of intricate details that you had to make sense of without any clear resolution.

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good mystery with thrills and chases through Paris with lots of atmosphere.

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am thoroughly enjoying her books. They are set in Paris, and I love reading about Paris! They are tricky to follow sometimes but always interesting and exciting. Very different! I like!

[Hetta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Worst NYT Book Review rec ever.