Bennett Sisters Mysteries Volume 7 & 8: featuring Francie Bennett
by Lise McClendon
BLAME IT ON PARIS
When Francie Bennett, 4th in the line of lawyer/sisters, comes under serious allegations of wrongdoing at her law firm, she is mortified to learn she must take a leave of absence. Just a formality, they say, but she is sure this is the end of her reputation and her law career. Will she sit around her apartment and eat cheese, drink wine, and binge Netflix for weeks while hoping it gets worked out?
ZUT ALORS! NON! She is off to Paris on assignment by the mother of a student jailed for serious drug crimes in France. She stays with her sister Merle and her boyfriend, the debonair policier Pascal, in the Marais district while trying to navigate the murky waters of the French criminal system. Is the student an actual European drug kingpin? Or has he been framed by someone? He looks guilty as hell, but first impressions can be confusing, especially inside one of France's worst medieval prisons.
But wait-- a distraction from crime. A law school boyfriend that the flighty Francie kicked to the curb years before has surfaced. Instead of the boring lad she flicked away, Dylan Hardy is now sophisticated and suave-- and speaks perfect French from working in an international law firm. And he's single again, Merle discovers, eager to find her sister a real boyfriend after many rejects over the years.
IT'S SPRINGTIME IN PARIS-- or would be if the rain would ever stop. In between visiting the student in prison, gumshoeing about his University, and witnessing drug stings gone wrong, Francie longs to find blooming cherry trees that make Paris the magical place she imagines it is. Will Dylan's sudden re-appearance in her life be a good thing, or a repeat of her many romantic failures? Will she figure out what is going on with the drug dealer/student? Will she ever find her pink trees of legend?
A BOLT FROM THE BLUE
When Francie Bennett goes back to Paris to help untangle an old woman's estate at first she is confined to escorting the grumpy heir to fancy dinners. Not that she's complaining because... well, PARIS. She's up for more though, and the client turns out to be a a Frenchwoman who hates France she is intrigued to say the least.
When Axelle Fourcier left Paris behind after the student riots of 1968, she vowed never to go back. She despises Paris, for reasons she won't relate. She made a life for herself in America as a professor. But now a beloved aunt, age 104, has died and left her an inheritance to be shared with a cousin she never met. A fabulous Belle Époque apartment in Paris filled with pop art from the '50s and '60s is just the start of Axelle's discoveries in Paris. Wrangling with her slick cousin for the proceeds is distasteful but oh so French.
But the road to the inheritance is more than rough. The fancy Parisian apartment is broken into, a friend is murdered, and Axelle's fears that the French state is once again conspiring against her seem very plausible.
For Francie her simple role of companion to Axelle becomes much more as she tries to deal with her cranky client, her own new relationship with Dylan Hardy, plus his nine-year-old daughter. As the estate problems spin out of control they decamp to the Dordogne for help from sister Merle. Intrigue, romance, Paris and the Dordogne, and a soupçon of murder, wrapped in the legal and art world of France bring more than a few 'Bolts from the Blue' to the Bennett Sisters.
When Francie Bennett, 4th in the line of lawyer/sisters, comes under serious allegations of wrongdoing at her law firm, she is mortified to learn she must take a leave of absence. Just a formality, they say, but she is sure this is the end of her reputation and her law career. Will she sit around her apartment and eat cheese, drink wine, and binge Netflix for weeks while hoping it gets worked out?
ZUT ALORS! NON! She is off to Paris on assignment by the mother of a student jailed for serious drug crimes in France. She stays with her sister Merle and her boyfriend, the debonair policier Pascal, in the Marais district while trying to navigate the murky waters of the French criminal system. Is the student an actual European drug kingpin? Or has he been framed by someone? He looks guilty as hell, but first impressions can be confusing, especially inside one of France's worst medieval prisons.
But wait-- a distraction from crime. A law school boyfriend that the flighty Francie kicked to the curb years before has surfaced. Instead of the boring lad she flicked away, Dylan Hardy is now sophisticated and suave-- and speaks perfect French from working in an international law firm. And he's single again, Merle discovers, eager to find her sister a real boyfriend after many rejects over the years.
IT'S SPRINGTIME IN PARIS-- or would be if the rain would ever stop. In between visiting the student in prison, gumshoeing about his University, and witnessing drug stings gone wrong, Francie longs to find blooming cherry trees that make Paris the magical place she imagines it is. Will Dylan's sudden re-appearance in her life be a good thing, or a repeat of her many romantic failures? Will she figure out what is going on with the drug dealer/student? Will she ever find her pink trees of legend?
A BOLT FROM THE BLUE
When Francie Bennett goes back to Paris to help untangle an old woman's estate at first she is confined to escorting the grumpy heir to fancy dinners. Not that she's complaining because... well, PARIS. She's up for more though, and the client turns out to be a a Frenchwoman who hates France she is intrigued to say the least.
When Axelle Fourcier left Paris behind after the student riots of 1968, she vowed never to go back. She despises Paris, for reasons she won't relate. She made a life for herself in America as a professor. But now a beloved aunt, age 104, has died and left her an inheritance to be shared with a cousin she never met. A fabulous Belle Époque apartment in Paris filled with pop art from the '50s and '60s is just the start of Axelle's discoveries in Paris. Wrangling with her slick cousin for the proceeds is distasteful but oh so French.
But the road to the inheritance is more than rough. The fancy Parisian apartment is broken into, a friend is murdered, and Axelle's fears that the French state is once again conspiring against her seem very plausible.
For Francie her simple role of companion to Axelle becomes much more as she tries to deal with her cranky client, her own new relationship with Dylan Hardy, plus his nine-year-old daughter. As the estate problems spin out of control they decamp to the Dordogne for help from sister Merle. Intrigue, romance, Paris and the Dordogne, and a soupçon of murder, wrapped in the legal and art world of France bring more than a few 'Bolts from the Blue' to the Bennett Sisters.
