“You’re a pest… A real nuisance in heels.”
Nancy Drew has grown up, and she wears Louboutin pumps and rides an unreliable pink scooter around town. Cara Black’s Aimée LeDuc is living her most feminist adventure ever, as she juggles maman duties with a full time (and fully dangerous) job, one that finds her jumping over rooftops, scrambling through sewers, and generally the object of the attention of many bad guys. While at home Aimée is happy with baby Chloe, she’s alienated from her baby’s father, as well as from the critically injured Morbier, her protector and stand in father who lies in the hospital, dying, asking for her.
In the world of work, she’s juggling a case at the École des Beaux-Arts and a request from her old friend, Suzanne, who is sure she’s seen one of the most terrible humans alive on the streets of Paris. Thing is, she’s sure this man, who tortured, raped and killed little girls in Bosnia, was killed in a bombing. Aimée isn’t sure whether to believe Suzanne or not but she agrees to look for him while running computer checks at the Ecole in her slightly less alarming job.
As everyone from Rene to Chloe’s father, Melac, warns her to stay away from Suzanne’s case, Aimée just can’t, especially when some of Suzanne’s other contacts start dropping like flies in ways that could almost be accidents. Aimée is sure they are not (even a mysterious death by bee stings) and plunges on.
As always one of the great pleasures of a Cara Black book is the true sensation of being in Paris, as Aimée scoots here, there, and everywhere. The plot is suitably complex and the reason this ghost must be caught more than chilling, lending an urgency to Aimée’s investigation. The bits of Aimée’s personal life that sneak in – her relationships with Melac and Morbier and less troublesomely, with Chloe, lend the book and the proceedings an emotional grounding. I found Aimée’s believable juggling of her baby and her job one of the more resonant aspects of the novel. This is another wonderful installment in a deservedly long lived series.