The clock struck murder

Set during the 1924 Paris Olympics and appearing as the 2024 Paris Olympics loom, the second in Webb's Lost in Paris series, following Lost in Paris (2023), is centered on the deaths of two lovelies who work at a flea market. But for readers, the murders may take a back seat, considering all that ex-pat and amateur sleuth Zoe Barlow has going on. Banished from her Alabama home after the birth of her biracial daughter, Zoe is mourning her husband, lost in the Great War, and paying Pinkerton detectives to find the child. Closer to home, she's having an affair with a French policeman and, to assuage her guilt, reading aloud to his wife, who is comatose after a stroke, unaware that the patient is recovering and angry. Zoe is also searching for lost paintings by her friend Marc Chagall. Everything from clothes to food to the weather is deliciously detailed, and everyone from Hemingway to Picasso seems to be in Zoe's circle. Lots of fun, plenty of history, and Zoe's personal mysteries will have fans eager for the next installment.

Webb's ingratiating second mystery featuring American expat Zoe Barlow (after Lost in Paris) once again puts its lead on a collision course with real-life historical figures. In 1924 Paris, Zoe is hard up for money, and still hoping Pinkerton operatives back in the States will locate her missing daughter. After her favorite porcelain clock breaks, her search for a replacement leads to a flea market in Montparnasse, where she buys a new clock from vendor Laurette Belcoeur, only to find, when she gets home, that it's been wrapped in a painting by Marc Chagall. Baffled by the artwork's shabby treatment and convinced that Laurette must not have known what it was, Zoe returns to Montparnasse to track down the vendor. After much poking around, she discovers Laurette bludgeoned to death in her storage shed, her corpse next to a stack of other Chagalls. With the police overcommitted to combating petty crime as Paris prepares to host the Olympics, Zoe sets out to solve Laurette's murder herself, and in the process uncovers evidence of another killing. The plot's similarity to the previous entry--in which missing Hemingway writings lead Zoe to investigate two murders--shows signs of rote formula, but Webb's vivid evocation of 1920s Paris wins out in the end. Francophiles will have fun. Agent: Jill Marr, Sandra Dijkstra Literary. (Apr.)

Hordes of tourists and broiling heat test the resolve of an American woman set on finding a killer in 1920s Paris. Zoe Barlow was exiled to France by her racist family after secretly marrying a Black man and having his baby. The newborn was literally ripped from her arms and she doesn't even know if her daughter survived. Subsisting on a small allowance, poker winnings, and the sale of her paintings, she's built up a circle of Parisian friends from artists to aristocrats, and every penny she can spare goes to the Pinkerton Agency, which is looking for her baby. When her favorite clock is broken by a drunk guest at her weekly poker game, she purchases a replacement from Laurette Belcoeur, one of two sisters who run a small flea market in Montparnasse, but she gets more than she bargained for--the replacement clock turns out to be wrapped in a painting by Marc Chagall, who'd had most of his canvases stolen and sold by a so-called friend while he was away in Russia. Hoping to discover where Laurette got the painting, Zoe finds not only more of Chagall's work but also Laurette's bloody body. The inspector in charge of the case is once again Henri Challiot, Zoe's married lover. Zoe returns what she found to Chagall without telling Henri. In her spare time, she reads to Henri's wife, Gabrielle, who's in a coma following a stroke--though, unbeknownst to anyone, she's regained enough of her faculties to plot Zoe's death. The 1924 Olympics keep the city crowded, but despite the crowds, the heat, and her many problems, Zoe can't forget Laurette's murder and puts herself in danger searching for motives for what seems a senseless death. A complex and fascinating mystery adorned with historical characters from Marc Chagall to Johnny Weissmuller. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.