The Aimee Leduc Companion

night.…
    7. Regnault office, looking out on Jardin des Plantes, 6, rue des Chantiers.

    9. Bains municipaux, rue des Deux Ponts: trying to wash away the memory of a horror.
    10. Fromagerie Bernard: brie and sympathy. And gossip.
    11. An Auvergnat café where little goes unobserved, smack in the middle of the island.

    13. Jean Caplan’s brocante, rue des Deux Ponts: an admirer of the Belle Hélène.
    15. Brigade fluviale—the river police, quai Saint Bernard: all you need to know about dead bodies in the river.

    16. Théâtre de l’Ile Saint Louis, quai d’Anjou, next door to the antique dealer at #41.
    17. Hôtel Lambert, rue St-Louis-en-l’Ile: faded glory, scurrilous rumor, big capitalists, hors d’oeuvres, champagne, bombs. What more could you want?
    18. Quai de Bourbon beneath Pont Louis Philippe, encampment of a courtly bum named Jules, where everything is for sale.

Cara’s Ile Saint-Louis Picks

    Église Saint Louis-en-l’Île: rue Saint-Louis-en-l’Île at rue Poulletier, 75004 Paris.
    Musée de l’Assistance Publique—Hôpitaux de Paris, Hôtel de Miramion, 47, quai de la Tournelle, 75005 Paris. A fascinating, sparsely attended museum. Okay, maybe it’s a little ghoulish too. (See #14 above.)
    Open-air Sculpture Museum: 8, quai Saint Bernard, Square Tino Rossi, 75005 Paris. Whimsical and impressive at the same time.
    Berthillon: 31, rue St.-Louis-en-l’Île, 75004 Paris: an institution and a delight. The best sorbet in the world, probably.
    Mon vieil ami: 69, rue St.-Louis-en-l’Île, 75004 Paris. Imaginative cooking that won’t break the bank.
    Tour d’Argent: 15, quai de Tournelle, 75005 Paris. These are not its glory days, but the restaurant is trying to reinvent itself, and the view from its dining room is still glorious.
    Rôtisserie du Beaujolais: 19, quai de Tournelle, 75005 Paris. Dependable offshoot of Tour d’Argent across the street, specializing in roast chicken and in meats. Good quality/price ratio.

Murder in the Rue de Paradis (August 1995)

    Aimée Leduc seems to be having a streak of good luck. First, she secures a lucrative computer security contract for her Paris detective agency that just might keep them afloat. Then her ex-boyfriend Yves, the gorgeous bad-boy investigative journalist who has been stationed in Cairo, appears out of nowhere. Despite her feelings for him, Aimée has never been able to trust Yves to stay in one place, not to disappear off to some foreign country or some other woman. But he insists he’s back in Paris indefinitely—and wants to make the ultimate commitment. He proposes to her that very night, and Aimée can’t help but say yes.
    When she wakes up in the morning, though, Yves is gone, and has not even left a note. Aimée is irate until she learns the awful truth: Yves was murdered early that morning, his throat slit in a distinctive pattern that seems to tie into a Turkish military group called the Yellow Crescent. Heartbroken and convinced the Brigade Criminelle are not following the right leads, Aimée pursues the mystery behind Yves’s murder. He was working on an article about Kurdish radicals, and more and more evidence seems to link his death with a cell of Islamic jihadists. Yves was killed when he tried to help a cause he believed him. Her own life may be on the line, but Aimée is not going to let him die in vain
    Characters

    Series characters whose info has changed since the previous book:
    No particular news on Martine this time (sorry, Martine -watchers). Still not married; currently in Curaçao or maybe it’s the Antilles—we don’t know whether it’s a temporary assignment or what. Only mentioned once in this book.
    Non-series characters appearing in this book:
    Abouz, Nadira (nanny)
    Ahmet, Kat (novelist, expert on the Yellow Crescent)
    Albert (the buckle man)
    Ansary, Tamin (landlord of iKK office)
    Basquiet (railroad employee)
    Belfont (at Sarko Security)
    Berto (the wino/addict/whatever)
    Bordereau (DST contact)
    Boutarel, P. (the realtor)
    Carla ( Nadira’s fellow nanny)
    Delbard, Madame (Nadira’s employer)
    Deranger ( Vatel and Nohant’s boss)
    de Rosnay, Saj (Leduc Detective’s tame computer hacker)
    Drieu, Gerard (correspondent who worked with Yves )
    Edlick, Osman (columnist)
    Ehret, Colonel (leader of Yellow Crescent)
    Faroum (‘Fare’mouse in Turkish: train cleaner at Gare du Nord)
    Florand (Brigade Criminelle)
    Giséle (medic)
    Iqbal (employee of Institut Kurd)
    Isabella (hostess at Ansary’s