Lou Jane Temple, Death du Jour

Death du Jour

Lou Jane Temple

Berkley, March 2006, $22.95, 264 pp.

ISBN 0425208060

It is not easy living in Paris in the summer of 1790. The Bastille has been torn down over a year ago, the king and queen were forced to move from Versailles to Paris, and the revolutionaries are whipping up the general populace to a patriotic fury. Fanny Delarue lives as an assistant chef to Monsieur Monnard, a wealth bourgeois who works with merchants and nobles in designing and building their homes. The chef to the Monnard family is Henri, Fanny's lover. Her parents give her a spice box as a present, and she loves it because of its usefulness and because it was presented with love.

Fanny is perturbed that she sees the same man nearby over a short period of time. She is disconcerted when he speaks to her, calling out to her by name as if he knows her. Violence comes to the housing complex where Fanny lives, when Chef Etienne who used to work at Versailles is murdered. Shortly thereafter, a mob tries to get into Fanny's home, and the master of the house flees for England before the violence escalates. M. Desjardins, the English equivalent of a butler is murdered and Henri persuades Fanny to bury him without telling anyone. When Henri disappears, she is kidnapped and told his life is in her hands. She wonders if the contents of the spice box is linked to the violence and murders, and plans to find out.

France on the eve of the Revolution is vividly portrayed in this exciting historical mystery. The violence is just beginning, and readers learn first hand how the citizenry cope in such a volatile political climate. Although not yet out of her teens, the heroine is a mature woman who knows what she wants and goes after it. Lou Jane Temple has written a mystery that takes several unexpected twists that leaves reader shocked. This is a most enjoyable who-done-it.