How could I be fooled by such an unprepossessing title!

Die Around Sundown by Mark Pryor 

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This was anything but! Paris when the Germans marched in! (The Germans wore grey. She wore blue!) Inspector Henri Lefort had been in the French army in the first war, this time round he’s a French detective who’s been given a task by the Germans to find a killer in five days. No going to the place where the body was found (the louvre btw), and—a list of the suspects all neatly typed! What fresh hell is this? Solve a murder without investigating?

We go from a murder, to the saving of paintings from rapacious German hands, to the startling revelations of events that happened in the last war, and oh! more bodies littering the scene.

Told in the world weary tones of a gumshoe detective, or just someone disgusted by it all happening again, with nary a shot fired—as Paris rolled over. Small signs of rebellion are a score for all.

Indeed if this was a film Humphrey Bogart would not be out of place as the lead.

Still the ending was to die for! Oh, I’m sorry, someone did!

A clear eyed look at murder in times of war and the invading army from a somewhat Philip Kerr-ish perspective. I loved it.

A St. Martin’s Press ARC via NetGalley.                                              

Many thanks to the author and publisher.