Lost in Paris

In the first installment in Webb’s (“Lena Jones Mysteries”) newest mystery series, nimbly narrated by Hope Newhouse, Zoe Barlow, a moderately wealthy expat living in 1922 Paris, finds her friends are in as much danger as she is while searching for a missing valise full of Ernest Hemingway’s writings. Newhouse embodies Zoe’s Southern charms as Zoe coolly escapes one dangerous situation after another, shows compassion to disfigured World War I veterans, and comforts friends who have lost loved ones. Newhouse juggles not only multiple French voicings for Zoe’s friends, including her lover, inspector Henri Challiot, and Henri’s wife, Gabrielle, but also a Russian accent for Count Sergei Ivanovic Aronoffsky. Initially light and carefree, Newhouse embodies the shock, sadness, fear, and uncertainty that builds within Zoe as she discovers several dead bodies of close friends and realizes her life is in jeopardy if she continues the search for the missing valise. Her gritty determination is palpable when the inspector questions her about the deaths and when she comes face-to-face with the killer, while her total vulnerability is on display when her past is revealed.