The Case of the Black Pearl: A stylish mystery series set in the South of France

by Lin Anderson

Overview

Introducing glamorous private investigator Patrick de Courvoisier in this stylish new mystery series.

Content to leave his controversial past behind him and enjoy a more relaxed, hedonistic lifestyle on a converted houseboat in the glamorous French resort of Cannes, enigmatic Englishman Patrick de Courvoisier is known as ‘Le Limier’ or ‘Fixer’. People come to him with their problems – and he fixes them.

However, when Camille Ager asks Patrick to find her sister, Angele Valette, star of the new movie The Black Pearl, Patrick’s laidback lifestyle is dealt a terminal blow. Last seen at the film’s lavish launch party on board the luxurious black yacht owned by Russian oligarch Vasily Chapayev, the funds behind the movie and owner of the famous black pearl, Angele seems to have vanished into thin air – and so has the pearl.

As Patrick questions all those involved with the movie, he discovers that this is a case where nothing is as it seems. And when a dead body turns up on his boat, the investigation takes a deeply disturbing new twist.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781780105222
Publisher:	Severn House Publishers
Publication date:	07/01/2014
Series:	Comprehensive #05 , #1
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	770 KB

About the Author

Lin Anderson is the author of eight crime novels featuring Glasgow-based forensic scientist Rhona MacLeod. She is co-founder of Bloody Scotland, Scotland’s first crime writing festival. Born in Greenock of Scottish and Irish parents, she now lives in Edinburgh.

Read an Excerpt

The woman paused to check the name on yet another yacht moored along the quay. Taller than the average movie star hopeful, with shoulder-length dark hair and long slim legs showing discreetly below a stylish blue dress, she was striking and classy. And, Patrick suspected, bringing trouble his way. The thought pleased him. Things had been quiet since March, when he'd dealt with a Swedish national who'd attempted to leave without paying six months' rent on one of Chevalier's properties at the top of Le Suquet, just next to the church and with a view to die for. Since then, Patrick had spent his time doing repair work on his boat, Les Trois Soeurs, climbing in the Esterel Mountains, reading, and indulging his desire to take risks at the nearby casino. By May he'd had enough of the quiet life and was looking for a challenge. It appeared his prayers had been answered. Having reached his boat, the lady was scrutinizing its name. The Three Sisters was not the usual type of yacht moored in the old port. A former French gunboat, heavy hulled, she stood out like a French bulldog among a line of poodles, or at least that's what he liked to think. His visitor had decided she'd found what she sought and was looking up at him, Patrick de Courvoisier, seated on the upper deck, reading, or pretending to. Lying across his feet, Oscar, an actual French bulldog, snorted in his sleep as though he knew and disapproved of what was about to happen. Patrick wondered if the dog might be right. But there was something about trouble – a scent as enticing as his favourite dish at Le Pistou on the nearby Rue Félix Faure – that he could not resist. 'Monsieur de Courvoisier?' She observed him quizzically, although it may have been the sun in her eyes. Patrick often made a decision on voice alone. If he agreed to work for someone, he had to be prepared to listen to them pouring out their troubles, pleading, lying, arguing, complaining and sometimes refusing to pay. Her voice reminded him of a cocktail served up in the Irish bar across the road. The cocktail contained, or so he'd been told, Bailey's liqueur, chocolate milk and whipped cream. It was entitled, in the understated way of the Irish, an Orgasm. Patrick stirred himself and answered the luscious voice. 'C'est moi.' Her rendition of his name had suggested French or at least someone whose pronunciation hadn't been learned from a phrasebook or school class. Now he waited as she decided whether he was French, or had simply acquired the name from a French branch of the family. She chose correctly, which impressed and offended Patrick at the same time. 'May I come on board?' she said in lightly accented English. 'Be my guest.'

Editorial Reviews

05/12/2014
This mildly diverting series opener from Anderson (Picture Her Dead and seven other Rhona MacLeod crime novels) introduces Patrick de Courvoisier, an Englishman with a murky past who lives aboard a converted gunboat in the French resort town of Cannes, where he offers his services as a low-key, laid-back “fixer.” When Patrick agrees to look for Camille Ager’s missing sister, actress Angele Valette, who vanished along with a valuable black pearl, he unwittingly steps back into the shadows of his former mysterious career, into a world populated by temptresses and well-connected Russian mobsters, as well as by liars and crooked cops. The stakes become deadly with Patrick’s discovery of a beautiful woman drowned in the bathtub on his boat. Anderson uses her setting with a certain amount of skill, but readers should be prepared for lackluster language and stock characters. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Courvoisier is a dashing, sophisticated hero, and with an action-packed plot, filled with violence and shocking twists, this page-turner will more than satisfy fans of jet-setting suspense"

Booklist

07/01/2014
Ah, Cannes: glamour, movies, and, whoops, a missing starlet. Enter Patrick de Courvoisier, "The Fixer" who can do it all. He swims great distances, he is multilingual, and, of course, he seduces beautiful women. When starlet Angele Valette and a valuable necklace disappear together one night, questions arise. Patrick is hired to find her; it might be foul play or perhaps Angele might be a thief. Patrick soon learns that the financiers behind the actress's big movie are Russian mobsters. Angele is no sweetheart herself, and Patrick is furious when the case causes Marie, a friend of his, to lose her life. Now hired to find Marie's killer, Patrick moves with steely determination, and he sets in motion a high-stakes sting that guarantees deadly consequences. Yachts, snorkeling, and assorted clever moves will all be required before Patrick can unravel this messy scenario. VERDICT Fast and clever—veteran author (The Snake House; Picture Her Dead) and screenwriter Anderson's appealing new series debut is just the ticket for a lazy afternoon read. Further adventures are implied by the tempting and vaguely open-ended conclusion.

Library Journal

2014-06-15
In a series debut, a private investigator escaping a mysterious past runs head-on into a dangerous present during the Cannes Film Festival.The Englishman who renamed himself Patrick de Courvoisier is living a quiet life between cases on his French gunboatLes Trois Soeurs,anchored in the Old Port of Cannes. But he’s restless and ready for trouble, which obligingly finds him in the person of Camille Ager. She wants him to find her half sister, Angele Valette, the star ofThe Black Pearl,a film premiering at the Cannes festival. Angele and the eponymous pearl have been missing since the night of the film’s launch party aboard a lavish yacht. The yacht’s owner, Vasily Chapayev, is also a financial backer of the movie, and Camille says Angele was scared of him. After a magical evening with Marie Elise, a high-priced escort who was friendly with the missing starlet, Patrick’s warily romantic dreams are shattered when he finds her dead aboardLes Trois Soeurs.It’s not the first warning he’s received to stay off the case, and he fears that his missing French bulldog is another. But Patrick can't linger aboard his own boat. Convinced he'll be the first suspect in Marie Elise's death, he gathers up the paperworkfor three different identities, dives overboard, swims to shore and heads for a former comrade’s house to establish an alibi. A surprise meeting leads to a deal over the black pearl, a hint of even more expensive gemstones, and a risky plot for justice and vengeance.The enigmatic hero borders on opacity, and the write-by-numbers style Anderson (Picture Her Dead,2011, etc.) favors is only partly offset by a fast-moving plot and the Cannois setting.

Kirkus Reviews