Book Review: A Murder Most French by Colleen Cambridge (An American in Paris Mysteries #2)

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Strong characters, great mystery, historic setting used well

Cons: French speakers’ dialogue doesn’t quite make sense to me

The Bottom Line:

Demonstration death

Pulls Tabitha in again

For second good book

Murder Most Rare

I enjoyed the first An American in Paris Mystery from Colleen Cambridge, so I was looking forward to A Murder Most French, the second in the series.  Fortunately, it was as good as the first.

This book finds us in Paris in January 1950.  We once again get to spend time with Tabitha Knight, who happens to be neighbors and best friends with Julia Child.  Julia is happily taking classes at Le Cordon Bleu, and Tabitha is happy learning from her friend since Tabitha has very little knowledge of what to do in the kitchen.

When this book opens, Julia is excited about a demonstration that a famous chef is going to be doing that afternoon at the school, and she insists that Tabitha go with her.  However, the demonstration ends abruptly when the chef dies after taking a sip of a rare and expensive wine he’d received just before the event started.  Despite vowing to stay out of it, Tabitha can’t help but wonder what is going on.  Can she figure it out?

Let’s get my issue out of the way first.  Obviously, this book is set in France.  It is well established that Tabitha speaks fluent French, and any time she is with other Americans, she mentions in the first-person narration that they are speaking English.  So why is it that every time a French character is speaking, we have at least one word in French?  They would naturally be speaking French, so every word is in French.  This also annoyed me since I know no French, although we can always figure out what they mean by context or Tabatha’s explanation.  Quite often, the French world is one of the few words I know, so decoding it isn’t an issue.  And, it does mean that all these characters come across in my head with a delightful French accent.  But I am left scratching my head about the logic of why this is happening.

Really, despite that lengthy paragraph, I did enjoy the book.

We don’t have a large circle of series regulars, but the ones we have are delightful.  Yes, that includes Julia Child, who comes across much like I picture her acting based on the few video clips I’ve seen.  Tabatha is a strong main character who really does try to stay out of trouble while she pokes into the mystery.  And the suspects we meet here are good.

And what a great mystery we have.  The clues and red herrings are all in place to keep us guessing until the end.  A couple times, I wondered where the story was going, but everything came into play like I suspected it would.

Like with the first book, there is a smattering of foul language in this novel.  Keep that in mind if that kind of thing bothers you.

Given the historical setting, Paris in the aftermath of World War II is a big focus.  I really enjoyed that look at what life was like then, including how the citizens survived the occupation in the war years and the results of the war in how the citizens went about living life.

Don’t read this book hungry.  With Julia Child as a character, there is lots of talk about food, and it made my mouth water as I read it.  No, there aren’t any recipes at the end, but we don’t really need them.

Overall, A Murder Most French is a strong and fun mystery.  Anyone with an interest in Paris in the 50’s or Julia Child will be glad they picked it up.

NOTE: I received an ARC of this book.