Great Fiction Books I've Enjoyed About Paris and France

I have always been a voracious reader and whizzed through all of Cara Black's books since I discovered them a few months ago, and am anxiously awaiting the release of her latest book Murder in the Latin Quarter this month.

The heroine of the book is Amy Leduc, a private investigator, who seems to get herself into and out of a lot of trouble. Each book is based in a neighborhood of Paris, and filled with murder and mayhem, coupled with political intrigues and social unrest, and of course, Amy's lovelife. Black gives you great background information on the different cultures that meld together to make Paris Paris. She is based here in California.

Another great book I recently devoured was Rendevous Eighteenth by Jake Lamar. The highlight for me was that the story takes place in Montmartre, my favorite part of Paris. Lamar's character is an African-American ex-pat who goes to Paris to get away from his past, and is enjoying his life until his cousin shows up. Lamar does a great job of capturing the streets of the eighteenth arrondissement that I love to walk. He's a great writer and another one of those Americans thought he'd stay there for a short while, and has now lived there for over ten years. He was a writer for Time magazine for six years. His website is nice and hs some good links as well. I cannot wait to read Ghosts of Saint-Michel, but my library doesn't have it, yet.

If you are interested in medieval life, and especially medieval life in France, then I highly recommend Sharan Newman's "Catherine Le Vendeur" series. Newman is a medieval historian and Ph.D in twelth century France. I have only read one of the books, out of sequence, and am now ready to start the series from the beginning. She prefers to do her teaching through her novels, and seems to have written a very large amount of them.