#11: Crossing the Line by Frédérique Molay

It's Christmas in Paris, but the stalwart cops of La Crim' and their chief, Nico Sirsky, have a tricky murder on their hands in Frederique Molay's French thriller Crossing the Line.

It seems as if a cadaver donated to science has a dental filling which holds a secret message, leading the police on a trail that includes mysterious disappearances and shadowy medical practices.

Molay's novel is brisk and undemanding, focusing more on the procedural than the police in this police procedural, but flashes of life in Paris over the holidays are welcome.

This novel comes from Le French Book, a publishing house bringing French beach reads to the U.S.; I checked this out from the Morrisson-Reeves Public Library in Richmond Indiana and enjoyed it.

#26: City of Blood by Frédérique Molay

Thirty years ago, an artist symbolically buried his work as part of a modern art installation in a Parisian park; when the work is unearthed, a skeleton is found, sending Chief Nico Sirsky and the cops of the Criminal Investigation Division to work in Frédérique Molay's French thriller City of Blood.

Tidy, but television-sized police procedural moves at a fast clip as a fresh wave of similar murders--attributed to "The Butcher of Paris"--spurs the team on.  Sirsky also copes with the sudden onset of illness in his aging mother, and makes a deal with the heavens that wise cops don't make.

Glimpses of the French police and legal systems, as well as daily life, add interest.

I checked this out from Morrisson-Reeves Public Library in Richmond, Indiana and read it quickly, as I think it was meant to be consumed.

This novel comes from Le French Book, a publishing house bringing English translations of what seem to be French beach reads to new audiences--and I will definitely look for more of these.