My Latest Book Reviews

I recently read Cara Black's latest, Murder in the Latin Quarter, as well as Jake Lamar's Ghosts of St. Michel. Both are murder mysteries set in Paris, with Black's heroine detective Amy Leduc sorting out difficulties with Haitian refugees sans papiers (literally without papers), and Lamar's dealing with black American ex-pats coming to grips with the past.

Murder in the Latin Quarter was just released this month, and I was second in line to read it via our excellent library system here in Fresno. Did you know that you can research your book requests online, pick the book (vhs, cd, dvd or whatever) you want, and they will send it to your neighborhood library for pick up? My husband and I love this feature and utilize it extensively.

As for Lamar's book, Ghosts of St. Michel, strangely enough it wasn't in our library system at all, and I requested that they purchase it. Well I had to read it, because it's the second it the series after the excellent Rendevous Eighteenth. I was notified that it was no longer available, so I bought it online for a few bucks. Even stranger, this book only came out a few years ago, and the book I purchased was a withdrawn library book. One has to wonder if it was pulled from American shelves due to hints of the conspiracy theories of 9-11. Does anyone know if there is a list of blackballed books that the library uses to cull undesireable reading material? I really enjoyed this book as not only was it a great read, but gave a lot of history unbeknownst to me regarding Place St. Michel.

The Place (pronounced ploss san michelle) is a favorite spot of mine as Mike (as I like to refer to him) is my patron saint. A woman like me needs a good warrior saint to keep up the good fight!

Needless to say, the Place is noted in French history as a site for many political protests and the most notedly, as the spot where the Resistance, Communists, Allies won the fight against the Nazis in WWII. How many Americans knew that the Communists were on our side? If you stop and think about it, it makes you realize why they have such a strong socialist party.

More to come on Mike and the Place.