Cara Black in Paris

I just finished another Cara Black crime detective novel. They've all taken place in Paris and feature Aimee Luduc Investigations. There are at least 19 books in the series and I had read a couple of them but they were relatively recently published.

The one I finished reading today was the very first book in the series Murder in the Marais published in 1999 and the story takes place in 1993. In May 2018 I read Murder in Saint-Germain #17 published in 2017 and Murder on the Left Bank #18 published in 2018 which I read in October 2018.

One of the things I really liked about these novels were the detailed descriptions of Paris including the restaurants, cafes, shops, museums, streets and cultural buildings. It is all very fascinating and fresh in my mind having visited Paris for the first time in 2018. There are many scenes in the book that carefully describe the settings and Paris was so fresh in my mind that I could picture those scenes to the finest details although the Paris of these novels all take place in the late 90's and early 00's and have that computer era feel to them.

Jumping into the 17th novel of a series does have it's problems but I really did enjoy both of those books.

So now I was able to get the first book in the series out of the library and I learned more about the detective Aimee Luduc by starting at the beginning. I was somewhat disappointed in the book and I realized she had become a better writer as she progressed through the series over twenty years. The plot of this first book doesn't always make sense but I could see the beginnings of some of her ways of doing things and getting into trouble that would be fine tuned later on in the series. It was still enjoyable because I knew the character and the author was focusing on Paris the city right from the very start of these novels.

I see that a new book #19 in the series has been recently published and the library has it available as an e-book so I think I will be getting it sometime in the very near future. Unfortunately the library now has volumes 1, 17, 18 and now 19 but none of the other novels. Oh well. There are lots of other detective mystery novels set in interesting locations out there.