Since I had come to a new section of The Last Lion by William Manchester, I interrupted my reading of it to read a murder mystery by Cara Black, Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis. This book is about the fifth or sixth book in a series featuring Aimée Leduc, a private detective in Paris. In this story, a baby is left in her care, a woman pleads for help, a couple of people are murdered and it’s tied to an eco-group trying to stop the signing of an accord between the government and an oil company that would pollute the North Sea. The group is set up, and there are bombings, dark operatives, corrupt CEOs, a blond killer, book-sellers, Polish aristocrats, hit men, and a homeless woman who talks to her long-lost daughter, Paulette, who was put on a train for Auschwitz in 1942. In fact, there are a lot of characters, including her business partner, a dwarf, René. The whole thing was dense, with the specific gravity of lead, and fast — careening toward a conclusion, difficult to see signposts along the way since the reader is suffering from whiplash. This is one case in which the movie will no doubt be better than the book.

2 stars. Find this review and all my reviews on Goodreads.