Murder Below Montparnasse

An Aimee Leduc Investigation, Book 13

De: Cara Black

Narrado por: Madeleine Lambert

A long-lost Modigliani portrait, a grieving brother’s blood vendetta, a Soviet secret that's been buried for 80 years - Parisian private investigator Aimée Leduc's current case is her most exciting one yet.

When Aimée’s long-term partner and best friend Rene leaves their detective agency for a new job in Silicon Valley, Aimée knows she can handle the extra workload. At least, that what she tells herself...repeatedly.

But all bets are off when Yuri Volodya, a mysterious old Russian man, hires Aimée to protect a painting. By the time she gets to his Montparnasse atelier, the precious painting has already been stolen, leaving Aimée smelling a rat. The next day, Yuri is found tortured to death in his kitchen. To top it all off, it looks like Aimée isn’t the only one looking for the painting. Some very dangerous people are threatening her and her coworkers, and witnesses are dropping like flies. Now Aimée has to find the painting, stop her attackers, and figure out what her long-missing mother, who is on Interpol's most wanted list, has to do with all this - fingers crossed she wasn't Yuri's murderer, despite clues pointing in that direction.

Obviously, Rene doesn't need to worry. Aimée has things under control.

©2013 Cara Black (P)2013 AudioGO

Reseñas de la Crítica

"[Has] a lengthy, well-developed subplot. Allusions to Modigliani, Picasso, Cocteau, Man Ray, and Duchamp help evoke 1920s Paris." (Publishers Weekly)

Worst Reading Ever

How did the narrator detract from the book?

I could not finish it. The narration was trite, full of voices so false sounding that they belonged in characters in a Disney cartoon.

Annoying narrator

I did not finish this read because the narrator's voice and her feeble attempts to sound like different characters were so Nothing. I can't say if the story was any good because I just couldn't listen to another word.

Love Cara Black, but narrator ruins it

One of the many reasons I love Cara Black's novels which take place in Paris, is that it brings back wonderful memories and allows me to actually visualize her settings. I spent several months a year in Paris, and had become accustomed to her "in" way of doing things. Another reason was that I liked the mysteries and story line, which in the past were brought to life perfectly by a great narrator, whose French accent and pronunciation were right on. It was like having a mini-French review with each book, and learning more slang. I also learned even more about Paris, which seemed impossible.

Not with this book, however. It still has a great story line and offers great visual insight into Paris haunts, habits and customs, but not pronunciations of the French terms she uses repeatedly in all her books. They are continually mispronounced in French, or pronounced here as one would in English. It is terribly distracting. The French word "frison" is pronounced "freezone" (accent on the last syllable), not "frishin".

The second thing that was irritating about this narrator was that she read so fast! I had to keep checking my iPhone to make sure the speed was set correctly at 1x. It was.

The third in many of the irritating qualities of this narrator was that she could not vocally characterize men. Morbier sounded ridiculous, the young kid intern sounded as if he had a cold, and every other male was cartoonishly voiced. Why change narrators?

In short, this book would be better read than listened to, with this narrator. I don't follow the plot closely due to her hurried mutilations.

Cara--please write more books, but PLEASE go back to the former narrator!!

Mon dieu, quelle disappointment

What disappointed you about Murder Below Montparnasse?

Bland story with a particularly weak read. Sorry, but these characters, even when somewhat differentiated, came off as very cliche as an audiobook. I wonder if this is the case where the written word would have been better

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

It isn't obvious whodunnit and the setting is of course interesting, Paris loving francophiles are surely the target audience here and I consider myself one.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Murder Below Montparnasse?

The whole silicon valley angle is atrocious, it is so trite that I cringed through each stereotypical moment.

New narrator is nowhere near as good.

Wow, I got this book for free, but if I paid for it would you go back to the previous reader? Freaking horrible.

Great story though.