Book Review: Mastering The Art Of French Murder by Colleen Cambridge

The debut novel of Colleen Cambridge’s An American In Paris mystery series finds our plucky young heroine, Tabitha Knight, staying in the French capital with her beloved Grandpère and Oncle Rafe. While the end of the Second World War was a relief to her and to everyone she knew, the return of able-bodied men to the homefront quickly put Tabitha out of a job. Having thrived as a machinist and mechanic in the United States war effort, she’s left unemployed and at loose ends. So when her Parisian grandfather invites her to cross the Atlantic for an extended stay, she packs her trusty Swiss Army knife and flies over to join him as soon as she can.

Tabitha quickly falls in love with the city and with her “messieurs”, as she calls her two elderly relatives. It helps, too, that she’s become fast friends with her exuberant neighbor, a diplomatic wife named Julia Child, who has recently undertaken an endeavor to master French cooking:

I was always curious about how machines worked and what made people tick–in fact, that was partly how Julia and I had become such close friends. One day last summer when we ran into each other at the market, she mentioned that their radio wasn’t working properly.

 

I had my handy tool knife with me of course, so I offered to try to fix it. She was so grateful when I did, and when I wouldn’t accept payment for the work, she insisted I stay for dinner. I’d never had such good food outside of a restaurant, and that was when I realized I needed to learn how to cook. If I could fix an airplane engine, I could roast a chicken. It couldn’t be that difficult, could it?

Tabitha’s attempts so far haven’t been quite as successful as Julia’s, but their friendship has only strengthened with the passing months. In fact, Tabitha is often a fixture in the Childs’ apartment, socializing with both Julia and her sister Dort, who works in a local theater that stages primarily American plays for American audiences. While Julia and her husband Paul often retire to bed much earlier than the younger set, Tabitha is happy to hang out with single people her age, even if she’s not quite ready for another romantic entanglement after the end of her own engagement back in Michigan.

It’s after one such evening that Tabitha and Julia are horrified to be drawn to the scene of a grisly crime. Mathilde, the Childs’ maid, has discovered a body in their building while taking out the trash. Tabitha identifies the dead woman as Thérèse Lognon, a local who had been at Dort’s latest soiree just the night before. Tabitha and Thérèse had actually left the party together, with the former going home while the latter waited for a taxi. But Thérèse had never gotten into a vehicle, and had been stabbed to death instead.

The fact that the knife came from the Childs’ apartment, and that Thérèse had a slip of paper with Tabitha’s name and address on it in her pocket, immediately makes them all suspects in the eyes of the investigating officer, Inspecteur Étienne Merveille. Stung by the inspector’s suspicions, Tabitha decides to look into the matter herself. Dort presents her with a perfect opportunity for sleuthing when she asks Tabitha to temporarily take over for Thérèse in the theater’s coat room. All of the viable suspects in Thérèse’s murder work at the theater, and Tabitha is determined to figure out which one of them did her in. But a crafty killer is also at work, and if Tabitha isn’t careful, she could very well be the next victim crossed off of a lengthy list.

This was a fun romp through post-war Paris in the company of the fictional Tabitha and the very real, very inspirational Julia. Viewing Paris through Tabitha’s eyes is such a delight, as she loves everything about the country of her forebears, even when they insist on strangely restrictive rules:

But here in Paris, it was technically illegal for a woman to wear trousers without obtaining permission–from the police!–to do so. As I understood it, it was acceptable for a female to don pants if she were riding a bicycle or a horse, but not to simply cross the rue, and certainly not to go shopping.

 

The French were, I decided as I waited for the steady stream of cars to slow so I could step onto the cobblestone street, a strange mixture of formality and bonhomie, restrictiveness and flamboyance, and rudeness and charm. But I adored the French with all of their quirks, and I had come to love their City of Light.

It’s wonderful to follow along as Tabitha sleuths and, just as importantly, learns how to cook under the tutelage of the charming Julia Child herself. What home chef hasn’t dreamt at least a little of learning to cook in Paris with one of the most famous names in culinary history? While Tabitha’s recklessness during the course of her investigations gave even a seasoned mystery reader like myself pause, the well-researched historical setting and clear love of the locale were irresistible, and made Mastering The Art Of French Murder a solid series debut.