Bøger i Mrs Duchesney Mysteries serien

Cover Art © Roger Kopman. In Paris, two bodies have been found floating in the river. Two friends appear in tourists' photographs, side-by-side smiling up into the Heavens, as if this had been nothing more than another Saturday spent happily fishing. Later, a third unclaimed body will turn up at the morgue. When the fourth appears, it's time for Paris sleuths Mrs. Duchesney and Louie Bertrand to get involved. Something very fishy has been happening along the banks of the Seine. What could these four deaths have in common and how is a small boy named Cicero involved? "Demandez au Morse," the worm seller tells Mrs. Duchesney. "Ask the Walrus."

Cover Art © Roger Kopman. In Paris, there were simply too many beautiful women hiding too many secrets, and this case was becoming too personal and too intriguing for Mrs. Duchesney to solve on her own. There was only one name on the engraved invitation, "Louie Arnaud Bertrand" making it perfectly clear that Mrs. Duchesney was not welcome at Chateau de Robinesque-Roussel. Investigating the very delicate nature of this mystery would become her sleuthing partner Louie's first solo assignment. Mrs. Duchesney had to admit Louie was an excellent private detective, but at times like these, his weakness for fiery-tempered women always made him act a bit too charming and foolish… and always far too seductive for his own good. It was so curious. Why would a woman, who kept the chief inspector of the Paris police on her speed dial, prefer the help of a former lover in solving a mystery? Unless, of course, there was more to her story or something far more interesting to hide.

Cover Art © Roger Kopman. In desperation, she wrote, "Meet me in Paris." He would have said, "Yes." But, he never received her letter.Who did? Bon Voyage! Les grandes vacances, the six-week summer exodus, is about to begin, taking Paris sleuth Louie Bertrand to the sunny beaches of Deauville and leaving his sleuthing partner Mrs. Duchesney alone in Paris to investigate not one, but four new mysteries! The stamp market provides a perfect setting for a shadowy figure from Moscow, whose real interest in Paris may not be collecting stamps. A cold case involving a dead diplomat and his dubious widow simply refuses to remain cold, when evidence surfaces suggesting an Egyptian statue may not be the only priceless item missing from the couple's apartment. While Louie searches for two married sisters, traveling sans husbands, Mrs. Duchesney receives a coded invitation to rendezvous with a dead poet. As if that weren't enough intrigue, both Paris sleuths are compelled to investigate one of their oldest friends, when his unauthorized biography reveals a hidden past and secrets taken to his grave. It's another busy summer of Paris Mysteries. Pack your bags!

Cover Art © Roger Kopman. People often ask me, "How did Mrs. Duchesney become a famous Paris sleuth?" I tell them it should have been easy to predict that Francine Robinsworth Duchesney would find success doing something unexpected of a young woman from a small town in the American Midwest. For you see, she had never been what others in that part of the world might call normal. When I came to Paris in search of Mrs. Duchesney, a person described to me as the legendary Paris Sleuth Extraordinaire, I did not imagine her to be the unassuming little woman seated alone on a bench in Parc Montsouris. There was nothing extraordinary about this vaguely fashionable bundle of clothes, whose face was hidden beneath a hat and eyeglasses. Born with an exceptional curiosity, in a small town jam-packed with well-preserved century-old mysteries, where indiscretions lined cellars and attics like jars of last year's apricots, Francine found no lie was so well constructed, no secret so well kept, no treasure so deeply buried that she could not discover it. My interviews with Mrs. Duchesney would be the focus of my first year in Paris. After that, I was completely seduced by the woman and the city, forgetting the reason I had come there and finding new reasons to stay.

Cover Art © Roger Kopman. An early history of Paris Sleuths Extraordinaire, Mrs. Duchesney and Louis Bertrand. "Whatever the unknown in Europe," young Francine Robinsworth Duchesney told her parents at supper, "it has to be better than the known in a small town, where truth is hidden behind smiles, pleasantries, and an over abundance of stretch lace at weddings." On an old borrowed map hidden beneath her bed, Francine Robinsworth Duchesney had scribbled in bright blue "the other side of the world." Born with exceptional curiosity in a small town jam-packed with well-preserved century-old mysteries, where idle indiscretions lined cellars and attics like jars of last year's apricots, she found no lie was so well constructed, no secret so well kept, no treasure so deeply buried, that she could not discover and reveal it to an uneasy audience. So, when this youngest of eight Duchesney children receives an unexpected invitation to go abroad, most of her neighbors are relieved to see the annoyingly little amateur sleuth go. Europe will teach Francine how easily a young woman's mind and heart can be swayed by a dangerously vivid imagination and the unprecedented eagerness of intriguing men. In Switzerland, one man will ask her to stay "a while." In Paris, another will invite her to stay "forever." Only one will change her destiny forever with a small token, a mystery, and a priceless souvenir of A Summer Abroad. Later, she would write in her diary, "Whatever the truth is about my own life, it's still waiting somewhere else on a blank page in a place where people make no attempt to predict the future based upon a person's past."

Cover Art © Roger Kopman. People often ask me, "How did Louie Bertrand become a famous Paris sleuth?" For our first interview, Louie Bertrand agreed to meet me at a café at one o'clock in the afternoon for "le petit dejeuner." This should have been my first clue, for it shouted this artist turned sleuth was a "night bloomer." After our first night out together my head was still spinning. I pleaded to his amused face, "Tell me again how you and Mrs. Duchesney met, but first… please, tell me where I was last night." Monsieur Bertrand smiled, poured us both a coffee, and began, "We met during her first summer in Europe, when she was looking for something or someone to give her young life meaning. I could not have imagined then that our lives would become intertwined for thirty more summers. It was not logical in any sense, that she seventeen, and more child than woman, would have such a profound influence on me a man of thirty." From my interviews, I would learn that Louie Bertrand and his sleuthing partner Mrs. Duchesney were as different as… Well, as different as Paris in the daytime and Paris at night.

Cover Art © Roger Kopman. A search for immortality? Did this bring people to Paris in the summer or was their search for something more lasting? Love, romance, the perfect martini? When bouquets show up at Mrs. Duchesney's door four Sundays in a row with no cards attached, something other than a rare flower begins smelling odd to this seasoned Paris sleuth. The mystery is complicated when her newest client delivers an antique bottle of amber-colored liquid for analysis and her partner Louie Bertrand disappears from Paris… again. Is the bottle hidden on her bookshelf as priceless as the 300-year old gossip suggests? Could this be the elixir of eternal youth coveted by French aristocracy and of which poets wrote? If so, solving this mystery could change the perfume industry forever, but is it worth the risk?

Cover Art © Roger Kopman. A person could not boast of visiting Paris without one night at Caveau des Trésors. The century-old underground jazz club and quintessential address for the best jazz musicians in the world, where famous and infamous mingle freely, has been Louie Bertrand's favorite hideaway for 30 years. So, when the famous sleuth's table remains empty for too many nights in a row, the club's owner suspects foul play and contacts Louie's partner Mrs. Duchesney to begin a private investigation. When Mrs. Duchesney's cousin Rudy also goes missing, she must enlist the help of Chief Homicide Detective Monsieur Bruno Lacosta, recruit a reporter by the name of Simon Pennington, and lastly, make peace with the one woman in Paris she does not trust - the famously seductive owner of the most popular jazz club in Paris.

Cover Art © Roger Kopman. In the pre-dawn hours of another rainy day in Paris, a wet and shivering little bird of a woman appears at the door of a famous Paris sleuth to ask for help in selling an unknown masterpiece. The always-suspicious Mrs. Duchesney asks her visitor, "Did you steal it?" The meek widow Chorifé assures her host that she did not, but fears she might know who did. "Fear?" Mrs. Duchesney eyes grow larger. "Just how well do you know this thief?" To chase the villain from Paris to Corsica, all the while staying stay ahead of her nemesis, police detective Monsieur Bougonne, Mrs. Duchesney will need the assistance of her sleuthing partner, Monsieur Louie Bertrand, and an old friend, homicide detective Bruno Lacosta.