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Martine LeDuc, publicity director for the City of Montreal (and its fierce guardian against negative press), is caught between an obsessed McGill University doctoral candidate trying to find proof that the British Crown Jewels were stored in Montreal during WWII AND that not all of them were returned after the war, and the personal and greedy aspirations of her boss, Montreal's corrupt and incompetent mayor. Immediately in damage control mode, Martine separates the student from city administrators and joins her in the tunnels under the city that join all the operations that allow the city to function. Down here, until recently sealed off and hidden, are subterranean rooms in which the student insists that she has discovered remnants of the shipments from England. Martine's flashlight shines on a very old and somewhat scattered human skeleton complete with a bullet hole in the back of the skull. Enter a renegade Montreal police detective friend of Martine's and a return trip to the hidden room to allow him to determine what needs to be done. And, of course, he discovers among the bones a small cache of diamonds.
Murder ought to be murder, but this one is too old to be of much interest to the police. However, one of the diamonds disappears, a bizarre Jewish diamond merchant approaches Martine claiming to have seen and appraised it, Martine is distracted by family problems, and another murder happens and now the police are involved.
From the beginning, we have been following three story lines, masterfully handled by author Jeannette de Beauvoir. Incrementally, these threads converge but not enough for the reader (or certainly not me) to figure out who has done what to whom, when and why. Neo-Nazis emerge, as do Holocaust survivors whose fragility is heart-wrenching. Three countries and at least four groups of people are intertwined. The ending is a surprise but that is not a bad thing. It wasn't authorial cheating; it was me.
I read and review new mysteries. Wow! de Beauvoir is remarkably skilled and imaginative. She delivers strong, well-drawn characters who operate in her own beloved and well-known Montreal, and her historical elements are researched and ring true. But it is in plotting that she is brilliant. Someone might complain that it is too contrived and coincidental but that person will not be me. I am so impressed.
§ Diana Borse is retired from teaching English at Texas A&M University-Kingsville and savoring the chance to read as much as she always wanted to.
Reviewed by Diana Borse, March 2016
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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