Monday, September 24, 2012

Cara Black dans le Métro

Cara Black's 12th novel, Murder at the Lanterne Rouge, brings her protagonist, Aimée Leduc, back to Paris' Marais district. This is a slight departure for Black, whose previous books were each set in and named for a different part of the city, from Murder in the Marais and Murder in Belleville through Murder in Passy.

The novel's early chapters include brief but evocative scenes in the tunnels of Paris' metro, which makes this as good a time as any to dig up an old blog post, not mine but Cara's. Her post of April 11, 2011 at the Murder is Everywhere blog begins thus:
"With metro tunnels, sewers, old quarries and catacombs crisscrossing under its streets, Paris is a city of layers,"
and it's just one of several she has put up about subterranean Paris. I suspect that some of the notes she took to write those posts found their way into Murder at the Lanterne Rouge, and I get a kick of reading the raw material of the research side by side with the finished product.
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Cara Black will be part of my "Murder is Everywhere" panel at Bouchercon 2012 in Cleveland, Saturday, October 6, 10:15-11:05 a.m.

Here's the complete Bouchercon schedule.
©Peter Rozovsky 2012

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4 Comments:

Anonymous solo said...

Am I correct in thinking you didn't like the movie Diva, Peter? I think I am, so please ignore this link
to a chase scene in the Paris metro from that movie.

Luc Besson made a mildly interesting movie called Subway, set partly in the Paris metro. The title was a statement of intent, I think. He called the movie Subway, rather than Metro. American, rather than French. Good choice. A Frenchman with his head screwed on. A rare breed.

I ought to read Cara Black.

I just looked at the Murder Is Everywhere blog, Peter, and for a moment thought that the latest blog post was by the aforementioned Cara Black. It wasn't. Hydra-headed blogs like that should be heavily sign-posted to save simpletons like me from being confused.

In fact, the latest blogpost was by Leighton Gage, on the subject of Jorge Amado. Now, there's a guy (Amado) I really ought to have read.

Lazy fucker that I am, I haven't got around to Amado. But I have seen the movie Gabriela based on Amado's novel (Gabriela, cravo e canela) . All I really remember of that is what a wonderful looking woman Sonia Braga was. This recollection is based somewhat on Braga's ability to be economical with what the rest of us would call clothes. Is it shallow to remember a woman simply beause of how beautiful she looked? Fuck, it probably is. Until somebody else comes up with a better punishment, I shall just slap myself on the wrist for this observation.



T

September 24, 2012  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

I posted three links to Murder is Everywhere: One to the blog itself, one to all of Cara Black's underground posts, and a third to only one of those posts.

You are from the only person who has reacted that way to Sonia Braga.

September 24, 2012  
Blogger Kelly Robinson said...

I read a Cara Black novel when I was going through an insane read-everything-on-Soho phase. I need to go back to some of those authors.

October 21, 2012  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

I think her upcoming novel will be the fourteenth in the series, so you have some reading yet to do. Have you read Janwillem van de Wetering, Seicho Matsumoto, and Qui Xiaolong? They helped get me started on international crime fiction.

October 21, 2012  

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