Coq Au Vin Author:Charlotte Carter It took fifteen minutes to locate Gigi Lacroix. He sat on a bench waiting for us not ten yards away. A young girl was about to sit next to Gigi. She saw what we saw at the same moment: the glint of a big, thick blade on the ground. Gigi was leaking blood from the gaping wound in his side. And those flirty, lying eyes of his: dead, dead, dead. ... more »Lord, could that girl scream... Critics and readers alike have called Charlotte Carter's first mystery, Rhode Island Red, "breezy" and "sexy," and praised her writing as "extraordinary," "elegant and intelligent." Now Carter brings back her quick-witted, jazz-playing sleuth Nanette Hayes for one wild April in Paris, where hot music, romance, and the darkest of long-simmering passions are about to collide... Nanette grew up idolizing her reckless Aunt Vivian. A freewheeling globe-trotter with a fondness for musicians, money, and good times, Viv inspired Nanette's love of jazz and free and easy living. So when Nanette's mother gets a desperate telegram from the long-missing Viv, it's only right that Nanette return to the city she's always loved to help find her aunt. At first, everything is all good. With ruefully charming gangster Gigi Lacroix helping her search for Viv, Nanette is also enjoying some fiery Parisian nights...playing at Bricktop's and having steamy duets with Andre, a serious-minded Detroit expatriate who's mad-passionate about more than just jazz history. Then suddenly Gigi turns up dead, and Nanette is plunged into the dark past of le jazz hot. Soon, to save herself, her aunt, and Andre, she'll have to face some hard truths-about the past, herself, and her own illusions-that are promising heartbreak of the seriously fatal kind... Sexy, smart, fired up, and all too cool, COQ AU VIN features one savvily unconventional, always straight up detective who plays things her way no matter what-and reaffirms Charlotte Carter as one of the most inventive and entertaining new mystery writers.« less