From Publishers Weekly
Set in 1788, O'Brien's well-written fifth historical (after 2005's
Lethal Beauty) takes Anne Cartier, a teacher of the deaf and an experienced amateur sleuth, and her husband, Paul de Saint-Martin, Provost of the Royal Highway Patrol for the area surrounding Paris, to Nice, where they're spending the winter with a well-to-do English couple. The escape of a convicted murderer, Jean Lebrun, from Toulon naval prison leads to an official reopening of his case. Paul, who suspects Lebrun is innocent, reinvestigates the two-decades-old murder, while Anne soon finds herself dealing with a new killing that may be related. O'Brien doesn't play on the political undercurrents of prerevolutionary France as much as he did in earlier books, but series fans will find the usual meticulous attention to period detail.
(Sept.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Anne Cartier and her husband, Paul, provost of the Paris Highway Patrol in eighteenth-century France, are vacationing in Nice, where they hope the pleasant climate will help Paul recover from stress-induced malaise. Then they learn that Jean LeBrun, a skilled artisan imprisoned 20 years earlier for killing his master, has escaped from prison and may be hiding nearby. Paul is intrigued, especially since some suggest LeBrun was framed for his master's murder. He sets off for Paris to enlist the help of his trusted adjutant. Meanwhile, Anne, whose keen amateur detecting has helped Paul solve previous cases, decides to launch her own investigation in Nice, where the crime took place two decades ago. But her attention is diverted when a rakish army captain is brutally murdered at the country estate where she's staying. Can this crime have a connection with the LeBrun case? Solidly written, carefully researched, and inventively plotted, O'Brien's latest installment in this likable series will thoroughly satisfy historical-mystery fans who relish an extra helping of richly flavored period detail.
Emily MeltonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
