April 30, 2012
Set in early 1943, Janes’s satisfying 13th mystery pairing the odd couple of French detective Louis St. Cyr and Gestapo detective Hermann Kohler (after 2002’s Flykiller) focuses on crimes at two German internment camps “in a forgotten corner of southernmost Lorraine.” Almost 1,000 Americans and some 1,700 British women are housed in once luxurious adjacent hotels in a former spa town. When the detectives look into “wo possible murders, a terminated pregnancy, a kleptomaniac, a medium who overcharges,” and a missing poison capsule, they discover a snake pit of rivalries, allegiances, prejudices, and suspicions that threaten not only their investigation but their lives. Did Mary-Lynn Allen fall into an elevator shaft or was she pushed? Was Caroline Lacy murdered because she knew the answer? Despite Janes’s often opaque prose, the combined ingenuity of St. Cyr and Kohler, the harsh realities of the occupation, and an array of intriguing characters will keep readers turning the pages. Agent: Otto Penzler.