Q&A: Cara Black

Once more to Paris! Murder in the Rue de Paradis, Cara Black's latest Aimée Leduc mystery (see review, p. 49), offers our intrepid heroine yet another chance at love and then sets her on an investigation that highlights current fracture lines in the Islamic world. What better time to catch up with the author of this exciting series?

Like all of your works, Murder in the Rue de Paradis addresses political/historical concerns. Why take on these issues in writing a mystery, and why the Kurdish question in Rue de Paradis?

To me, these political and historical issues inform a story, make it "real" and current, and reveal sociological depths in French society. Paris is layered with history: the Romans, the Louis's, the Revolution, and Napoleon, to name a few. And also the more recent history of the Vichy government and French colonialism in Indochina and North Africa, whose legacy still vibrates today. The past informs the present, right? It fascinates me how historical background plays out in contemporary Paris and ripples the currents of modern society. The Paris I experience is taking the Metro, sitting next to the stylish Parisienne in black, the Moroccan man in a djellaba, and the plumber in overalls all on their way to work. Every day en route to the library archives for research, I walked through the tenth arrondissement, passing through an area called Little Istanbul, full of Turkish restaurants, a mosque, and the Kurdish Cultural Institute. In our country, no one talks about the Kurds, much less understands the issues they face in Turkey and the world. But this little pocket of Paris was like another world, and I wanted to know more about these people and how they could live next door to Turks, who'd relocated Kurds and banned their language. To get back to your point, I think mysteries offer a great structure to frame a story involving current issues, whether in a subplot or story line.

Poor Aimée! Why does she never get her man? (I really had hopes for Yves.)

Me, too. What can I say? But Aimée's penchant for bad boys seems to tip her relationship scale and makes her unlucky in love. I guess Aimée's experiences with men reflect many of the issues my French female friends go through. I meet these warm, smart, witty women with perfectly applied lipstick, their scarf tied the right way, leaning over the bistro counter after work discussing how hard it is to meet men, to maintain a relationship, and to deal with the trauma of breaking up, just like anywhere in the world. And it should give us all hope, I guess, that if a stylish Parisienne has trouble, it's universal.

You write strikingly of Paris, but you don't live there. How do you manage it?

Thank you! I'm very lucky to have made contacts in the Paris police, among private detectives, and finally get on a first-name basis with the café owner near my friend's apartment—it's only taken seven years! And inviting a private detective out for lunch, plying her with wine, and asking about her cases doesn't hurt. I've toured the Préfecture and the Paris police headquarters, visited the holding cells, and seen where Simenon set Inspector Maigret's "old office." Maybe, too, it goes back to my Catholic elementary school with strict French nuns, a Francophile father, and my uncle's stories about studying art in Paris on the GI Bill after World War II. Or to my first trip to Paris, when I slept under the Pont Neuf with the clochards and the next day met [novelist] Romain Gary—pretty heady stuff for a wide-eyed American backpacking on a shoestring.

Aimée is nothing if not stylish, and so is your writing. How did your style evolve?

I'm not really conscious of a writing style...except that I'd like to use a lot more naughty French words that don't translate well so the effect's not there. Less is more, as they say. My editor once suggested "to paint with a light brush stroke and move on," and I love that. For me the most vivid writing suggests and leaves the rest to the reader's imagination. Poetry is like that in that poems distill images, emotions, and a worldview all in a few lines. I was very humbled in a poetry class several years ago seeing the students agonize over a comma and paying such delicate attention to language and metaphor. And I kept having nightmares about never writing a decent metaphor, much less one that would work in a scene. But if a scene is about revealing character, setting the place, and giving atmosphere, it's best to show, not tell. As Chekhov said, "Don't tell me the moon is shining, show me moonlight glinting on a piece of broken glass."