Murder in Saint Germain by Cara Black: Book Beginning

I requested Murder in Saint Germain by Cara Black (June 6, 2017, Soho Books) from the library and was the first on the list! I picked it up today and can't wait to read it, as I've read all the others in the series by Cara Black and loved them.

Aimee is a young Parisienne and a computer security expert who manages to solve mysteries while dealing with her own complicated family past. In this book,  "Suzanne Lesage, a Brigade Criminelle agent on an elite counterterrorism squad, has just returned from the former Yugoslavia, where she was hunting down dangerous war criminals for the Hague." She asks Aimee to investigate when she thinks she is being stalked by a Serbin warlord thought to have been killed. 

All the novels, including this one,  are set in different quarters of Paris.

Book beginning:

Paris, Jardin du Luxembourg. July 1999
Tuesday, Early Morning

The beekeeper rolled up his goatskin gloves, worried that the previous day's thunderstorm, which had closed the Jardin du Luxembourg, had disturbed his sweet bees. He needed to prepare them for pollinating the garden's apple trees, acacias and chestnuts that week. Under the birdsong he could already make out the low buzz coming from the gazebo that sheltered their wooden hives. As he approached, he passed gardeners piling scattered plant-tree branches, their boots sucking in the mud. 

Page 56:

"Bonjour, ma belle," he said to the woman behind the counter with a wave. A Slavic accent. "The usual."

Memes: The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

Sunday Salon: Reading in French

I didn't get any books this past week. Well, maybe a paperback mystery or two.
We were busy putting away winter stuff and getting ready for summer, getting the air in for the upcoming 90 degree weather tomorrow and a few more days next week. My newer books are in piles and I can't make heads or tails of them in that condition! Plus, they are mixed up with my library books!

I'm reading a mystery novel in French by Michel Bussi, and was surprised that my college lessons came back to help me. I can actually understand much of the book, but I'm glad for the help my Kindle Fire gives with a French-English dictionary that I can refer to right on the reading device.

Mourir Sur Seine by Michel Bussi, January 2015.
The book is set in Rouen, France during the Armada, or Tall Ships Festival, held in the city every four years. Boats and ships from all over the world come to the shores for a nine-day show and  a town fiesta that can have as many as a million visitors. Of course, in this novel there is a murder to be solved.

Hope your reading goes well this week. It will be hot here, good for staying inside with a book or two!

Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also visit It's Monday, What Are You Reading? hosted by Book Date 

After the Crash by Michel Bussi: Review and Book Beginning

I finished reading  a thrilling new mystery set in  Claude Monet's Givenchy, Black Water Lilies by Michel Bussi, February 7, 2017, Hachette. Translated from the French. I enjoyed it so much, I went on to read a previous novel of his, After the Crash, a mystery set in the Jura mountains of France.

Book beginning:
23 December, 1980 12:33 a.m.
The Airbus 5403, flying from Istanbul to Paris, suddenly plummeted. In a dive lasting less than ten seconds, the plane sank over three thousand feet, before stabilizing once again. Most of the passengers had been asleep. They woke abruptly, with the terrifying sensation that they had nodded off while strapped to a roller coaster. 

Page 56:
"There remains the question of eye color," the doctor continued. "The only real distinguishing feature of this baby...Her eyes are strikingly blue for her age. The color can still change, darken, but all the same, this appears to be a genetic characteristic." 

My comments: After the Crash has an amazing plot. The only survivor in a horrific plane crash in the Jura mountains of France is a three-month-old baby girl. She was one of two baby girls of the same age on the plane, and none of the four parents survived the crash. 

There is no way to identify the baby, in the days before DNA testing was available. Two sets of grandparents claim her, the wealthy de Carvilles, and a working class family, the Vitrals.

The court awards the child to the Vitrals, but Mrs. de Carvilles hires a private detective to prove the baby Lyse-Rose is really hers, and not Emilie, the Vitrals's child. She gives the detective eighteen years to prove the case. The baby grows up to be called Lylie, a combination of both names, Lyse-Rose and Emilie, as neither family is one hundred percent sure who the child really is.

The book follows the two families and Lylie as she grows up, the story given in a detailed notebook written over eighteen years by the detective, Credule Grand-Duc. What he discovers after eighteen years is stunning. There are plot twists that makes riveting reading. I enjoyed it immensely.

I was surprised that our library carried both the hardcover and the ebook versions of the two books. I am looking for the third translated into English and may have to try reading the untranslated books with my college French. I just ordered Mourir Sur Seine. Wish me luck!

Memes: The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan

Rich People Problems: A Novel by Kevin Kwan, May 23, 2017, Doubleday
Source: library ebook
Rating: 4.5

I read the first two books, Crazy Rich Asians and China Rich Girlfriend, both stand alone novels though the stories follow basically the same people. Crazy Rich Asians is being made into a major film.

Rich People Problems takes up where the two previous books left off, and follow the Youngs, the Leongs, the Shangs, the Wus, the Bings, and other super rich families of Southeast Asia, Hong Kong,  and China. I read it as satire, though I wonder how much of the super wealthy lifestyles are true - the mansions they live in all over the world, the private planes and shopping trips to Paris and London, the lavish lifestyle, which includes superb Chinese food!, and the other uber wealthy people they socialize with.

The super wealthy from the countries of Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, China, the Philippines are portrayed in these novels, and famous name clothing designers, architects, and real titled people appear in this fictional setting.

In this third book, Rich People Problems, relatives scramble to inherit the fortune and home of a wealthy Singapore Chinese matriarch who is on her deathbed. Her will gives some surprises.

This was a fun read, but just how much is pure satire and how much borders on truth? The author was born in Singapore. I guess he writes about the people and places he is familiar with.
He now lives in Manhattan.

Sunday Salon: Black Water Lilies and Gardening

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I finished reading 

Black Water Lilies by Michel Bussi, February 7, 2017, Hachette. Translated from the French.

An unusual crime novel set in Giverny, France, the town made famous by the artist Claude Monet and his water lilies. The lives of an old woman, of an attractive young teacher, and of an 11-year-old girl intertwine in a mystery involving art, artists, talent, Monet's water lilies, and romantic as well as an obsessive love that changes their lives. I learned a lot about Monet and Giverny, his art and how he created his famous water lily paintings. 

I Found You  by Lisa Jewell, April 25, 2017, Atria Books.
My comments: 

This was an interesting mystery involving amnesia and an old crime that is slowly revealed as a lost man regains his memory. 

Alice, a single mother with three children find and take in a man they call Frank, a man who cannot remember who he is. They help him as he unravels his past and a horrific crime. I gave this 4 stars. 

Gardening:

I had no new books in the mail, but spent time gardening, weed-whacking, and tree trimming. I must say the yard looks better today, especially after the rain last night seemed to make everything greener, if that's possible. 

What are you doing this Sunday?

2017 Big Book Summer Challenge

The 2017 Big Book Summer Challenge is held by Sue Jackson at Book By Book. Click here to read the rules and join up. I have a book in mind that is over 400 pages long - 

Edgar and Lucy by Victor Lodato, March 7, 2017, St. Martin's Press is my choice for this challenge. It's 526 pages long. 

"...a stunning examination of family love and betrayal. Eight-year-old Edgar Fini remembers nothing of the accident people still whisper about. He only knows that his father is gone, his mother has a limp, and his grandmother believes in ghosts ."

The challenge runs through Labor Day, so I will begin reading very soon! It's open to everyone, even those who don't have a blog but are goodreads members. 

Sunday Salon: How I Became a North Korean by Krys Lee

How I Became a North Korean by Krys Lee was a lucky find at the library, informative, revealing, and easy to read. The story involves a Korean-American student Danny who returns to his parents' former hometown in China, partly to run away from his separated parents and partly to escape the bullying in his California high school.

Danny meets runaways from North Korea who have crossed the river separating their country from China, and he tries to become one of them, befriending them while living as one of them, refugees in fear of discovery by the authorities. When Christian Koreans offer them shelter and food, Danny continues his subterfuge, unwilling to tell the pastors he is not a North Korean orphan, as his father is in America and his mother in China.

The novel reveals the plight of many North Korean refugees who make it across the river to China, but are there illegally, in fear of being returned to their oppressive home country. They often live in pitiful conditions in their newfound "freedom" and are taken advantage of by unscrupulous people while they wait and hope to be repatriated to either South Korea or another welcoming country.

The novel is written by South Korean writer, Krys Lee. I gave her intriguing and eye-opening novel five stars.

Other new books: a few cozy mysteries are also on my reading list.

Once Upon a Spine by Kate Carlisle, June 6, 2017, Berkley Books

San Francisco bookbinder Brooklyn Wainwright stumbles through the looking glass in a tale of murder, rare books, and a quest for the perfect pie 

Only Skein Deep by Maggie Sefton, June , 2017, Berkley

Kelly Flynn and her boyfriend and The Lambspun Knitters are eagerly awaiting the birth of Kelly's bouncing baby boy but find themselves having to solve a crime instead. 

A Just Clause by Lorna Barrett, June 13, 2017, Berkley

Tricia Miles, mystery bookstore owner and amateur sleuth, is in for a surprise when her ne er-do-well father, John, comes to town and becomes a prime suspect in the murder of a woman with a scandalous past. 

I got a galley of an historical mystery for a TLC book tour coming up.

Betrayal at Iga by Susan Spann, July 11, 2017 by Seventh Street Books.

Book description: Autumn, 1565: After fleeing Kyoto, master ninja Hiro Hattori and Portuguese Jesuit Father Mateo take refuge with Hiro's ninja clan in the mountains of Iga province. But when an ambassador from the rival Koga clan is murdered during peace negotiations, Hiro and Father Mateo must find the killer in time to prevent a war between the ninja clans.

What books are you reading? 
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