Sarah D'Almeida, Death of a Musketeer

Death of a Musketeer

Sarah D'Almeida

Berkley, November 2006, $6.99

ISBN 0425212920

In 1625 in a Paris tavern, Athos duels with a child D'Artagnan, while the other two Musketeers, Portos and Aramis watch when their rivals, five of the Cardinal's Guards arrive. Their leader Jussac wants to arrest the Three Musketeers for breaking the Cardinal's ban on public dueling, but having faced humiliation earlier, the trio agrees to die here. They tell D'Artagnan to leave, but he refuses, claiming in his heart he is the fourth musketeer.

They defeat their opponents and go off to celebrate, only to see another musketeer who runs from them. They give chase, but when they catch up to him in an alley, they find him dead. However, when they look closer at the corpse, they realize the murdered victim is a she who looks extremely like Anne, the Queen of France. They debate what to do, because if the deceased was killed because she is the Queen's double, then they need to uncover who committed treason; if she died because she was in a bad place, then the gendarme should handle the case. Deciding one for all and all for one and agreeing D'Artagnan earned his musketeer status, they begin to investigate who killed the queen's double?

This is a fun swashbuckling historical mystery starring the four musketeers of Dumas fame. The storyline is filled with action, as the heroes investigate the homicide while adhering to their original personalities. Though the number of suspects remains a bit low, musketeers and seventeenth century whodunit fans will enjoy this changing of the guard from thriller to mystery, while retaining the heroic got your back essence of one for all and all for one brotherhood.