The Most Mysterious Bookshop in Paris by Mark Pryor: A Review by E. B. Davis

   

 

Cover blurb from Amazon:

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 . . .

Amazon.com

 

This is the first book in the Paris Bookshop Mystery series by Mark Pryor, which will be released on March 31st. As a new reader of Mark Pryor’s, I felt the title was a bit deceptive after reading the book. The cover looks cozy enough, and it is a cozy in that there is no violence or death directly shown in the book. But the main character, Hugo Marston, is not cozy. He is retired and he does buy a bookshop in Paris, but he spends very little time there. He is not the typical shopkeeper found in most cozy mysteries. As a former FBI behavioral analyst (profiler) and then head of the American Embassy’s security, he’s too knowledgeable and hard-core to be a cozy main character. Even when the story takes place in a boutique chocolate factory, the story still isn’t cozy. The book was not what I expected. Not to say that I was disappointed, but more of that later.

 

After reading the book and researching author Mark Pryor, I found that Hugo Marston is not a new character, but a main character returning in a new mystery series. In 2012, Mark Pryor’s first book in the Hugo Marston Novel Series (comprised of nine books), The Bookseller was released. In this series, Hugo is not retired. He is the head of the American Embassy’s security and the cases he solves are directly related to his job. The last book in this series was released in 2020.

 

Six years have passed. In the current Paris Bookshop Mysteries, Hugo is older and now retired from the embassy, but due to his relationship with the Ambassador, he works on problems that cross the Ambassador’s public and private helm. Such is the case in The Most Mysterious Bookshop in Paris, in which an acquaintance of the Ambassador and English owner of a chocolate factory is being blackmailed. Most blackmail notes are pointed; the guarded secret is obvious. That isn’t the case here. The chocolate is a new and upcoming brand that has just been granted a Royal Warrant by King Charles of England. It’s an important kudos that will help launch the business. What I didn’t know is that most chocolate makers buy premade chocolate, called couverture, and use it to make or coat different filling flavors. When the English owner reveals that she buys her coverture from a German company and that might be the “secret” referred to in the blackmail note, Hugo doesn’t think that is a big enough secret to be a source of blackmail. The owner disagrees because even in present-day Paris, there is animosity dating back to WWII against Germany.

 

Hugo works with a transexual friend who is a midlevel Paris detective and a junior detective to solve the blackmail. Then, when a chocolate employee’s body is found on the factory grounds, they solve the murder case. Since Hugo doesn’t have the limitations the police have, they use his autonomy to further the case. Hugo relies on the policemen to get search warrants that he has no legal right to get. The dialogue among Hugo and the two detectives is humorous and honest. Hugo also has a journalist/sometimes girlfriend who gets information on cases, which turn into her stories. But he uses her position and case exposure to gain power with principal suspects via the pressure of the press.

 

Yes, I had no problem reading the book as a first-time reader, but I also think the author and publisher should announce the new series as a continuation of the old series at a later stage of the main character’s life. It felt a bit of a cheat when I realized that the character was already developed in nine previous titles. The author has established more than enough background/relationship details to write a strong mystery. It wasn’t what I expected, but it was a page-turner.