Victor Legris Mysteries Series

Murder on the Eiffel Tower is painstakingly researched, an effortless evocation of the glorious City of Light, and an exciting opening to a promising series featuring Victor Legris. The brand-new, shiny Eiffel Tower is the pride and glory of the 1889 World Exposition. But one sunny afternoon, as visitors are crowding the viewing platforms, a woman collapses and dies on this great Paris landmark. Can a bee sting really be the cause of death? Or is there a more sinister explanation? Enter young bookseller Victor Legris. Present on the tower at the time of the incident, and appalled by the media coverage of the occurrence, he is determined to find out what actually happened. In this dazzling evocation of late nineteenth-century Paris, we follow Victor as his investigation takes him all over the city and he suspects an ever-changing list of possible perpetrators. Could mysterious Kenji Mori, his surrogate father and business partner at the bookstore Legris operates, be involved in the crime? Why are beautiful Russian illustrator Tasha and her colleagues at the newly launched sensationalist newspaper Passepartout always up-to-date in their reporting? And what will Legris do when the deaths begin to multiply and he is caught in a race against time? Winner of the prestigious Michel Lebrun French Thriller Prize

Fin de siècle Paris: the world of Verlaine and Zola, Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec; a time of anarchists, scientists, and occultists, when can-can skirts were raised at the Moulin Rouge and fortunes were lost on the Panama Canal. Armand de Valois was one of these latter unfortunates, stricken by yellow fever at the site of his ruin. When his widow Odette disappears into his tomb in the Père-Lachaise cemetery and never returns, her maid Denise fears the worst. Alone in the great metropolis, Denise knows just one person she can go to for help: Odette's former lover, Victor Legris. When the frightened girl turns up at his bookshop, Victor feels there must be a simple explanation for Odette's disappearance. But it soon becomes apparent that something sinister lies behind events at the Père-Lachaise. When Denise turns up drowned in the Seine, and Odette's corpse is found buried in an overgrown backyard, Victor throws himself into his second investigation, aided by his trusty assistant Joseph and much to his lover Tasha's chagrin. Once again, Paris and its denizens come alive, and events of world and local history give the mystery a thrilling backdrop. From the the Bois de Vincennes to the streets of Saint-Germain, from trams to carriages, from artists' lofts to coffee bars, diligently researched and tightly plotted, The Disappearance at Père-Lachaise immerses readers in a fascinating mystery in the glorious City of Light.

The fast-paced and gripping third title in the bestselling Victor Legris mystery series Paris, November 1891: The body of a barefoot young woman dressed in red is discovered on Boulevard Montmartre. She has been strangled and her face horribly disfigured. That same day a single red shoe is delivered to Victor Legris's Parisian bookshop by a goatherd. Suspecting more than just coincidence, the charming bookseller sleuth and his assistant Jojo are soon searching for the identity of both victim and murderer. Then, a body is discovered in a wine barrel at the same time as a famous performer from the legendary Moulin Rouge is strangled in her apartment. Victor's investigation takes him and Jojo into the dark alleyways and bustling cafes of the hills of Montmartre, on a trail of evidence that seems to point to a case that shocked the population of Lyons years ago.

In In the Shadows of Paris, the fifth installment in this c'est magnifique Victor Legris series by Claude Izner, a murderer is at large in belle-epoque Paris. In the turbulent Parisian summer of 1893,Victor Legris has vowed to his fiancée to give up the dangerous hobby of amateur sleuthing to concentrate on selling books. But a killer is at large, leaving mysterious references to a leopard in his notes, and intent on revenge for events that took place many years before during the Commune. When a bookbinder friend of Victor's dies in a house fire that does not seem to be accidental, the young bookseller feels impelled to resume his detective work and uncover the identity of the Batignolles predator. Alongside his trusty assistant Jojo, Victor embarks on a new investigation in the bourgeois quarters of Paris, where scoundrels abound and streethawkers call out their wares among market stalls, under the bloody shadow of the Commune.

The fourth title in Claude Izner's bestselling Victor Legris mystery series, set in belle-epoque Paris The clock of the Église Trinité had just struck eight o'clock in the morning when, without warning, an ear-splitting explosion ripped through the district. A building on rue de Clichy rocked on its foundations, and within seconds its staircase had collapsed from top to bottom and its windows had shattered. His body vibrated with the shock of the blast and he thought only: Apocalypse. The street began to dance before his eyes. The dust pricked his nostrils, but what invaded him was something other than its bitter odour, something that seemed to emerge as a long-suppressed memory of a past experience. It was the echo of what had happened long ago. A sign. Paris, Spring 1892. Intrepid bookseller Victor Legris stumbles upon a new case to investigate when his business partner Kenji Mori's apartment is burgled. Curiously, the only item stolen is a decorative goblet of little value. But on learning that two people who were connected to the goblet have been murdered, Victor becomes convinced of its secret significance. He launches himself into the investigation, which takes him through the underbelly of Paris, in hot pursuit of the goblet as it is thrown in the garbage, picked up by a rag collector, and resold by several antique merchants, all the while leaving more dead bodies in its wake. How quickly can Victor recover the goblet and end the killing spree, in a city beset with terrorist activity by anarchists? Equal parts action, character, and atmosphere, The Assassin in the Marais is Victor's most challenging case yet.

The coast of Normandy, France, 1894: A mysterious young woman is rescued by an anonymous man after a deadly shipwreck. Paris, a few months later: The body of a well-dressed woman in a velvet mask is found in the abattoir district of La Villette in Paris. Next to the brutally strangled corpse, the drunk watchman—who witnessed the crime but was too terrified to intervene—finds a pendant featuring a black unicorn. Newly married bookseller Victor Legris is asked by an acquaintance to solve the murder of Louise Fontane, but he is initially baffled by the case. Louise was poor, so where did her finery come from? And what is the significance of the black unicorn? Within days, two more murders startle Paris—both victims were well-respected and seemingly wealthy, both have been killed in a similar fashion, both men's apartments have been defaced and ransacked, and both were members of the Black Unicorn Society, an organization bent on finding the philosopher's stone. Victor and his assistant (and brother-in-law), Jojo, struggle to draw the connections between the murders. And they struggle to keep their sleuthing from their wives, who frown upon their interest in mysteries. As their secret investigation progresses, they discover that in belle époque Paris, young girls with no money or background are as ruthlessly preyed on as ever they were. . . . Strangled in Paris is the sixth installment in Claude Izner's mystery series starring Victor Legris.