The Paris Spy by Susan Elia MacNeal and The Shadow District by Arnaldur Indridason

Two new mystery novels from two old favourites

Those of us who read mystery novels are always excited when a new installment of a favourite series is released. This fall we have new books by a couple I enjoy reading, The Paris Spy by Susan Elia MacNeal and The Shadow District by Arnaldur Indridason.

The Paris Spy features SOE secret agent Maggie Hope and takes place in the final years of the Second World War. In this episode Maggie is in Paris, on an assignment to locate another agent who seems to have disappeared – and on a personal mission to find her half-sister who she believes may also be in Paris. Maggie is masquerading as a young woman from neutral Ireland, supposedly in Paris to purchase her wedding gown and trousseau from those fashion houses that are still open. And, many couturiers are doing a very good business with the Nazi officers who are purchasing clothes for their wives and girlfriends.

While staying at the Ritz Maggie meets Coco Chanel who, though somewhat suspicious of Maggie, invites her to the ballet and parties that are frequented by high-ranking Nazi officers. Always fearing for her own safety, and especially for that of her fellow operatives, Maggie must be ever vigilant and fearless in her actions. This is a dangerous mission and mistakes are truly a matter of life and death for Maggie and others who support the Allies. Woven into the daring do life of Maggie Hope is the real history of the time, and in this case it is the planning of the Normandy invasion – and the British attempt to convince Nazi intelligence that they will land in another location.

The Shadow District by Arnaldur Indridason also takes place during the Second World War, this time in the Shadow District of Reykjavik, Iceland. This book is the first in a new series by Indridason that will all take place in wartime Reykjavik. Iceland has recently become a new republic, surrendered by Denmark during the Second World War. The geographic position of Iceland made it a vital location for the Allied forces during the war, and afterwards, and there were many British and American servicemen there for a number of years.

The story takes place in both the present time and during WW2. CID officer Marta enlists the help of her retired colleague Konrad in investigating the case of an elderly man who appears to have been smothered in his bed. As it turns out the man was once a Canadian serviceman of Icelandic heritage, Stefan Thorson, who remained in Iceland after the end of the war. During the war, fluent in both English and Icelandic, Thorson worked as liaison with the Icelandic police, especially a detective Flovent. There was great concern about the problems caused by the occupying soldiers fraternizing with Icelandic women and girls.

Thorson and Flovent become involved in an investigation into the death of a young woman who is known to have had an American soldier boyfriend, but the demands of war prevent them from satisfactorily concluding the investigation. Flovent wrote “for some reason the matter won’t give me any peace”.

It is only when Thorson, himself, is murdered many years later, and his death is being investigated by our present day detective Konrad, that the earlier murder inquiry surfaces again. Konrad discovers that Thorson had recently been asking questions of those still alive in an effort to discover who in fact had murdered the young woman in the case he’d been investigating during the war.