The Sorbonne Affair by Mark Pryor

The Sorbonne Affiar: A Hugo Marston Novel by Mark Pryor --- 285 pages including Acknowledgements.

Who would imagine that a teaching seminar for aspiring novelists could lead to murder? Especially in Paris?

The seminar is conducted by Helen Hancock, an internationally bestselling American author of romance novels. Her career may have peaked, but three ambitious would-be novelists have scraped together the money to come to Paris for two weeks for the opportunity to learn about writing and the publishing business from a seasoned professional. 

Hancock is staying at the very upscale and exclusive Sorbonne Hotel, where she is a frequent guest. She's also working on her next book, and meeting with her French publishers to negotiate a new contract. Then by accident she discovers someone has hidden a camera in her room.

The American ambassador to France is an old friend, so she asks him for help.  Enter Hugo Marston, chief of security for the American Embassy in Paris. He knows the most likely person to to plant a camera in a guest's room is a hotel employee. But before he can begin to question the staff, a bellhop, Andrew Baxter, is found, stabbed, in a stairwell. When Hugo and his friend, Lieutenant Camille Lerens of the Paris police, search Baxter's room they find evidence of gambling debts and a laptop that was used to download images from the hidden camera.

So now Hugo knows who hid the camera in Hancock's room, but not why; and it seems likely that Baxter was working for someone else, who may just be the person who killed him.

Meanwhile, Hugo is distracted by the news that a man with a big grudge against him and his friend Tom Green has been released from prison back home in Texas. Tom is convinced that Rick Cofer is out for blood. When Hugo is attacked in the street just outside his apartment, Tom worries that Cofer has found his way to Paris.

The seventh entry in Pryor's Hugo marston series features a complex plot with plenty of suspects and red herrings thrown in the mix, and as always, wonderful descriptions of Paris for wannabe travelers to savor.

Click HERE to read the review from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read the review from Bonjour Paris.com

Click HERE to read the review from the Manhattan Book Review.

Click HERE to read the review from the Internet Review of Books blog.

The Book Artist by Mark Pryor

The Book Artist by Mark Pryor --- 269 pages including a map and Acknowledgements. Book 8 in the Hugo Marston Series.

Hugo Marston, former FBI profiler and currently head of security for the U.S. Embassy in Paris, finds himself the target of a vengeful killer while investigating the murder of an up-and-coming young American artist holding her first international show at the Dalí Museum in Montmartre.

The French detective in charge of the case is not fluent in English, and since all of the prime suspects are American, Hugo offers his assistance in interviewing the witnesses and potential suspects. Unfortunately, Lieutenant Intern Marchand seizes on a single piece of evidence to build a case against Marston's close friend Claudia Roux, who happened quite by accident to be on the scene just after the murder was discovered. Now Hugo has a personal reason to remain involved in the investigation and clear Claudia.

While this is playing out in Paris, Hugo's best friend, former CIA spook Tom Green, is in  Amsterdam, following the trail of Rick Cofer, a killer recently released from prison in Texas, and carrying an old grudge against Tom and Hugo.

With Claudia under arrest, a murder to solve, and Tom in danger, Hugo knows he needs to find answers fast before one killer gets away, while another gets too close for comfort.

Mark Pryor is the author of the Hugo Marston novels, The Bookseller, The Crypt Thief, The Blood Promise, The Button Man, The Reluctant Matador, The Paris Librarian, and The Sorbonne Affair. Most of his books take place in Paris, the city he loves and knows best in the world. A native of England, Pryor immigrated to Chapel Hill NC in 1994, where his American mother's relatives lived. He went back to school and eventually earned a law degree from Duke University. After graduating he moved to Dallas TX to practice law. In 2006 he took a job as an Assistant Prosecutor in the Travis County TX District Attorney's Office, where he continues to work today.  He lives with his wife and children in Austin TX.

Click HERE to read a profile of Pryor from the Houstonia Magazine.

Click HERE to read a review of The Book Artist from Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read a review from Book People.

Click HERE to read an interview with Pryor about The Book Artist from thebigthrill.org.   

The Paris Librarian by Mark Pryor

The Paris Librarian: A Hugo Marston Novel by Mark Pryor --- 262 pages

Hugo Marston, an ex-FBI profiler, now works in Paris as head of security for the U.S. Embassy. But his job seems pretty flexible, as he always has time to conduct his own investigations on the side. In this sixth book in the series, Hugo discovers an acquaintance, Paul Rogers, the director of the American Library in Paris, dead, in a locked room in the basement of the library. The police and the medical examiner say Rogers died of a heart attack. But Hugo's getting that tingling sensation on the back of his neck that says otherwise.

But then another library employee nearly dies while on duty, his symptoms eerily similar to Rogers'. And Hugo discovers Paul's fiancee dead, an apparent suicide, just a few days later. If anything that tingling sensation is getting stronger and stronger.

As Hugo delves deeper into the lives of the employees at the library he begins to suspect that the roots of this case go further back than anyone else realizes. But to find the proof, Hugo must visit the scene of a decades-old tragedy, putting more than just his life in danger.

Mystery fans will enjoy the twists and turns of Pryor's tale; lovers of Paris will revel in the descriptions of the city and its neighborhoods, cafes and joie de vivre as the plot unfolds to its unexpected conclusion.

Click HERE to read the review in Kirkus Reviews.

Click HERE to read the review in Publishers Weekly.

Click HERE to read an interview with Mark Pryor posted on the Bonjour Paris web site..

The Blood Promise by Mark Pryor

The Blood Promise: A Hugo Marston Novel by Mark Pryor --- 286 pages

Third in the series of murder mysteries featuring Hugo Marston, the diplomatic security officer in charge of the American Embassy in Paris. The first two books in the series are The Bookseller and The Crypt Thief.

As with the other two books, The Blood Promise is a mystery with its roots in the past: in this case, the fate of a child during the French Revolution lies hidden in an old sailor's chest, its significance forgotten by the family that has had the chest in its keeping for two hundred years.

When a U.S. Senator with a maverick reputation and Presidential ambitions arrives in Paris to negotiate an obscure territorial dispute between the United States and France, Hugo is assigned the unenviable duty of shepherding the Senator through the negotiations. The meeting gets off to a rocky start when the Senator has too much to drink at the welcoming dinner and then insists that someone came into his room during the night and tried to steal his briefcase.

In order to placate the Senator, Hugo gets a friend of his from the Paris police to do a cursory investigation, only to discover to their amazement, that a fingerprint found in the Senator's bedroom matches a fingerprint taken at a house where an old woman was murdered during a robbery some months before. Only gradually does Hugo come to realize that someone was willing to kill to get possession of the sailor's chest and the secret it contains --- and someone is willing to kill again and again to keep that secret buried forever.

Click HERE to find out more about author Mark Pryor and plans for further Hugo Marston adventures.

The Crypt Thief by Mark Pryor

The Crypt Thief: A Hugo Marston Novel by Mark Pryor --- 253 pages

Hugo Marston, a former FBI profiler, now the head of security for the American Embassy in Paris, and his old friend Tom, a hard living more-or-less ex-CIA agent still on retainer, are called into action to assist the French police when the son of a U.S. Senator and his girl friend are found murdered near Jim Morrison's grave in the famous Père Lachaise Cemetery.

Even when the walled cemetery is put under intense surveillance, the unknown killer manages to return unseen, break into the crypt of a legendary Moulin Rouge dancer, and disappear again along with half of her skeleton. When it turns out that the murdered girl friend entered France on a faked passport in the company of a reputed Pakistani terrorist, the investigating forces begin looking at the crime as a possible terrorist plot --- but Hugo doesn't think so. Then the killer breaks into another cemetery and steals the bones of another famous Moulin Rouge dancer --- again, right under the noses of the police. How is the killer getting past the police? And why is he fixated on the bones of dead can-can dancers?

With timely assistance from a French police capitaine and Claudia, a reporter with whom he has an on-again, off-again relationship, Hugo finally begins to figure out what motivates these bizarre crimes. But can he manage to get one step ahead of this clever killer and stop his deadly obsession?

Sequel to The Bookseller. The author is a former British reporter, now an assistant district attorney for Travis County TX. Pryor is the creator of the true-crime blog, D.A. Confidential. http://www.daconfidential.com He lives in Austin.