{"id":2155,"date":"2022-06-30T18:36:35","date_gmt":"2022-06-30T18:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?p=2155"},"modified":"2023-04-02T23:00:03","modified_gmt":"2023-04-02T23:00:03","slug":"mastering-the-art-of-french-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?p=2155","title":{"rendered":"Mastering the Art of French Murder"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Cambridge\u2019s newest series has everything going for it. A magical setting: Paris awakening after World War II, with its fabled lights returning and food overflowing in the marketplaces. A great lead: sophisticated Tabitha Knight, who\u2019s abandoned Detroit, and a dull fianc\u00e9, to live with her older French uncle and his longtime partner. Plus some star power: Tabitha\u2019s buddy and neighbor, the young Julia Child, a student at Le Cordon Bleu who can always be found in her kitchen, stuffing some poor bird. Cambridge does a brilliant job capturing Julia with her quirky diction, fluty enunciation, and joie de vivre. But some of that joie flies out the window when a young woman is found dead in Julia\u2019s basement; the murder weapon is a knife from Julia\u2019s kitchen; and a note, in Tabitha\u2019s handwriting, is found on the woman\u2019s person. Tabitha\u2014every bit the modern, independent woman\u2014heads off to track down leads, break into the victim\u2019s apartment, and befriend an American theater group, all the while drawing the ire\u2014and maybe admiration?\u2014of the taciturn, but so very handsome, Inspector Merveille. <strong>A first-rate traditional mystery with strong characterization that is certain to appeal to a broad readership, especially fans of Jacqueline Winspear, Rhys Bowen, and Cambridge\u2019s own Phyllida Bright series.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cambridge\u2019s newest series has everything going for it. A magical setting: Paris awakening after World War II, with its fabled lights returning and food overflowing in the marketplaces. A great&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[61,54,64,55,164],"class_list":["post-2155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-amateur-sleuth","tag-historical","tag-international","tag-mystery-detective","tag-star"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/formidable\/4\/Mastering-400x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/formidable\/4\/Mastering-400x600.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Brian Kenney","author_link":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?author=1"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}