Paris Bookshop Mysteries Series

Danger creeps close to home when former FBI profiler-turned-Paris bookshop owner Hugo Marston must investigate the death of his friend–a French sommelier–in this stylish and suspenseful mystery for readers of Charles Finch, Ann Cleeves, and Martin Walker.

When police Lieutenant Camille Lerens shows up at Hugo’s Mystery and Antiquarian Bookshop, it’s clear she hasn’t come for a book recommendation. She needs his help. An attempted carjacking in Montmartre was foiled by a passerby. In the scuffle, the masked culprit was shot and killed with his own gun. However, the driver, the victim, refuses to reveal his identity, insisting he will speak only to Hugo Marston.

There’s good reason for this—the driver is in witness protection. Hugo knows, because he put him there. The question is, was this a random carjacking—or a calculated attack on the former mob accountant?

As Hugo is drawn into the case, another mystery presents itself while he dines with sommelier Christina Valdez. The appearance of a man lurking across the street from the restaurant prompts her to reveal that she’s being followed. Who stalks a sommelier? Hugo plans to find out.

But there’s more. Hugo soon uncovers a mystery in his very own mystery bookshop. Beneath loose floorboards lies a wooden box containing a gun, a bloody towel, and an encrypted diary. His former FBI colleague, Tom Green, helps crack the code, revealing a link to a cold case from over 30 years ago.

When bodies start turning up, Hugo must untangle the labyrinthine connections—before he, too, ends up on the wrong end of a gun . . .

Hugo Marston, former head of security at the U.S. embassy in Paris, has retired and is ready to realize his lifelong dream of owning a mystery and antiquarian bookshop. But when a blackmail scheme targeting a chocolatier leads to murder, Hugo is again called to investigate in the first Paris Bookshop Mystery for readers of Charles Finch, Tasha Alexander, and Lev AC Rosen.

Hugo has led an exciting life as an FBI profiler and the US embassy’s head of security, but now he’s ready to embrace a quieter existence as a bookseller in the Marais district of Paris. His former employer, however, has other plans for him. A prominent American citizen is the COO of a boutique chocolate emporium in Paris, where they’ve received a mysterious and threatening note. A blackmailer who goes by the name The Shadow wants half a million euros or else their “darkest secret will be revealed.”

Eclat de Chocolat is housed in a chateau dating back to the 1700s. The building, which served as a convent in the first half of the twentieth century, where the angelic Sister Evangeline and her order of nuns helped countless orphans during World War II, has been beautifully converted into a chocolate factory. So what dark secrets could a chocolatier be hiding? The COO has no idea.

Involving his friend, Lieutenant Camille Lerens, Hugo begins to investigate. But soon a second note appears on the premises, canceling the blackmail threat. The same day, the body of an employee is found in an old graveyard behind the chocolatier. Now Hugo and Lerens have a murder on their hands, but is it connected to the blackmail attempt? As they dig for secrets and motives, it becomes clear The Shadow’s grave work has just begun . . .