Title:

The Dark Edge of Night

Author:

Mark Pryor

Category:

Mystery / Thriller

Rating:

Date Reviewed:

November 24, 2024

he Dark Edge of Night is the second book in a series starring the French detective Henri Lefort. It is winter of 1940, and Paris is under the boot of the conquororing Nazis. This drives Lefort crazy - he hates the invaders, and sometimes he cannot help but mouth off at them, though this is a dangerous thing to do, for the Germans are quick to reach for their guns and murder civilians. Pryor writes several scenes that depict that burdens of living in Paris while Germans loot, steal and abuse all the civilians. It is not just the constant stress due to fear of violence erupting from the unpredictable, unaccountable soldiers, it also the lack food and resources. There is little to eat, the coffee is thin (if it is really coffee at all), no Frenchman can afford to drive a car, there isn't even shoe leather available to fix the hole in the sole of Lefort's shoe.

Lefort works for the Paris police force. Chief Proulx calls Lefort into the office - there are two Nazis standing there. One is an SS officer, Becker - a sneering bully who demands that Lefort drop all of his current cases and work to find a missing doctor. (In the first book of this series, Lefort solved a murder and the Nazis recall that he actually is a competent detective, even if he is French). Becker insists that the wayward Dr. Viktor Brandt be found quickly, or else "there will be consequences". The second Nazi in the office is the aristocratic Dr. Andreas von Rauch, a cohort of the missing Dr Brandt. von Rauch is more cordial while Becker is threatening and rude. Lefort is working on a murder case - a man was killed in what appears to be a robbery gone bad in a Ritz hotel room - the victim was severely battered in the face, which has Lefort wondering if it really was a bungled burglary.

Lefort is not really interested in finding a missing doctor for the Nazis, but of course everyone he knows will be threatened if he fails. So he tries to work on both finding the Dr. Brandt while also solving the murder. To make matters worse, his downstairs neighbor, Princess Marie "Mimi" Bonaparte, is concerned that "the authorities" have been taking children from the facility where they live - these kids do not return. Could Henri please use his detective skills to look into these disappearances?

Pryor does a good job of manufacturing tension, and placing obstacles in Lefort's way. The clues don't seem to point to any particular person, but of course, since this is a novel, it turns out that both of Lefort's cases are related.

I liked the grim atmosphere of WWII Paris. I liked how Pryor develops the suspicion between characters - for instance, why does the policeman Daniel Moulin seem to show up so frequently at Lefort's crime scenes? Henri argues with his brilliant sister, Nicola, about clues in these cases. I did not give the book five stars because I felt in the end it was a little bit too neat on how Lefort resolves all the mysteries. But I will be on the lookout for the next book in the series.