The Aimee Leduc Companion

okay?; etc.
    C’est vrai? —Really?
    Vraiment? —Really?

Glossary

    bien sûr —of course
    tiens —wait; hold
    alors —so; then
    et alors —so?; so what?
    tant pis —too bad
    désolé(e) —sorry
    attends —wait; listen
    mec —guy
    clochard —tramp
    flic —cop
    pute (short for “ putain ”)—prostitute
    salaud, salope —jerk (male and female forms)
    hôtel particulier —townhouse
    Brigade Criminelle —homicide bureau (Paris only)
    commissariat —quartier police station
    quartier —district contained in Paris arrondissements,
    four per arrondissement arrondissement —administrative district of Paris (there are 20)
    un zinc —old reference to cafés, for their zinc counter
    Armata Corsa: Outlawed Corsican nationalist movement
    BRIF: Brigade Recherche et Intervention Fiduciarie
    Brigade Criminelle (“La Crim”): The homicide bureau in Paris
    CRS: Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (Security Units of the Republic)
    DST: Direction Surveillance de Territoire (Anti-Terrorist Brigade)
    EPIGN: Elite military sub-unit
    ETA: Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (armed Basque nationalists)
    GIGN: Military Division of Gendarmerie Raid Police Assault Unit
    IGS: Internal Affairs
    iKK: radical Kurdish Workers Party
    Institut Medico Legal: the morgue, or the coroner’s office
    SAMU: Service d’Aide Médicale d’Urgence (Emergency Medical Assistance Service)
    TRACFIN: Traitement du Renseignement et Action Contre Les Circuits Financiers Clandestins (Treatment of Information and Action Against Illicit Financial Circuits)
    Yellow Crescent: network of militant right-wing Turks

Murder in the Marais (November 1993)

    Aimée Leduc is approached by a rabbi to decipher a fifty-year-old encrypted photograph, then deliver it to a woman named Lili Stein. When Aimée arrives at Lili’s apartment in the Marais, the old Jewish quarter of Paris, she finds a corpse: the old woman has been strangled, and a swastika has been carved into her forehead. With the help of her partner, René, Aimée is determined to solve this horrendous crime. Then more murders follow—someone is targeting survivors of the Nazi Occupation of Paris, now elderly Jews who only narrowly avoided deportation to the death camps in the east. The murders seem to be hate crimes, and her search takes Aimée undercover inside a neo-Nazi group, where she must play a dangerous game to fit in and track down the information she needs. As dark secrets of the war come unearthed, however, Aimée begins to wonder whether she has been following the wrong trail. Many of the older Jews in the Marais are afraid and prefer to leave the past alone, but the horrible legacy of the death camps and the words “never forget” propel Aimée to find out the true identities of the criminals, past and present.
    Characters

    Non–series characters appearing in this book:
    Agronski, Inspecteur (Criminal Brigade)
    Barrault ( Rambuteau attorney)
    Bertrand ( Aimée’s hacker former boyfriend)
    Blum, Rachel ( Lili’s friend, a little older than Lili )
    Cazaux, Laurent (French trade minister, candidate for prime minister)
    Clotilde ( Aimée’s hairdresser)
    Clouzot, Albertine (owner of the Chanel suit)
    de Saux, Laurent (informer from Madame Pagnol’s class)
    Florence ( Albertine Clouzot’s maid, picked the suit up from the cleaner)
    Goutal, Solange (Administration Assistant, Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine)
    Griffe, Hartmuth (German trade adviser), wife Grete , daughter Katia (died as a young child)
    Häckl , Ilse ( Griffe’s bureau administrator)
    Hecht, Soli (from Temple Emanuel, hires Aimée to deliver something to Lili Stein )
    Javel, Félix (cobbler)
    Lartigue, Inspecteur (killed by Nazis in 1943)
    Leah (old friend of Aimée’s mother, runs Mon Bouton)
    Leif (Les Blancs Nationaux)
    Ludovice (waiter at Chez Mathieu, corner café near Aimée’s apartment), sometimes takes care of Miles Davis.
    Mazenc, Arlette ( Javel’s fiancée murdered in the war)
    Noiret, Madame (clerk at Morbier’s office)
    Pagnol, Madame ( Sarah and Lili’s teacher during WWII)
    Quimper, Henri (Belgian trade adviser)
    Rambuteau, Claude (Les Blancs Nationaux, Thierry’s father), recently deceased wife Nathalie Rambuteau , Thierry (Les Blancs Nationaux); Nathalie and Claude were not his adoptive parents
    Redonnet, Odile ( Sylvie’s older sister)
    Redonnet, Sylvie (cafeteria server at Lili and Sarah’s childhood school)
    Sausotte, Annick (Director, Centre de Documentation Juive