I have looked forward to each new installment of Cara Black’s series ... I’ve read them all, and there isn’t a clinker in the lot ... Black’s milieu-driven novels could not take place anywhere other than the City of Light, and they are all the better for that.
...[a] marvelous mystery tour of Paris ... Murder on the Left Bank boasts all of Black's trademark charms, including deft plotting, sharp dialog and colorful sights and sounds.
Even after 17 books, Ms. Black has intriguing corners of Paris to reveal—from an enclave of ateliers once home to the likes of Gauguin and Rodin to a crime-ridden neighborhood where 'no one wanted to be witnessed witnessing.' And her heroine remains an unpredictable work in progress herself: a daughter faithful to the memory of a father she nonetheless fears may have collaborated with the Hand; a doting but still unmarried mother; enough of an existentialist to answer the question 'Who are you?' with, 'In the scheme of life? To be determined.'
Like her earlier entries, Black’s latest is refreshingly free from the focus on French food culture that marks provincial mysteries and gratifyingly full of local Parisian color. But a little more variation in the detection menu would be welcome.
