Mastering the Art of French Murder

Book 1: American in Paris Mystery

by Colleen Cambridge

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Historical Mysteries; International Crime & Mystery; Mystery

Synopsis

Fans of Jacqueline Winspear, Marie Benedict, Nita Prose, and of course, Julia Child, will adore this magnifique new mystery set in Paris and starring Julia Child's (fictional) best friend, confidant, and fellow American. From the acclaimed author of Murder at Mallowan Hall, this delightful new book provides a fresh perspective on the iconic chef's years in post–WWII Paris.



"Enchanting . . . Cambridge captures Child's distinct voice and energy so perfectly. Expect to leave this vacation hoping for a return trip." —Publishers Weekly



As Paris rediscovers its joie de vivre, Tabitha Knight, recently arrived from Detroit for an extended stay with her French grandfather, is on her own journey of discovery. Paris isn't just the City of Light; it's the city of history, romance, stunning architecture . . . and food. Thanks to her neighbor and friend Julia Child, another ex-pat who's fallen head over heels for Paris, Tabitha is learning how to cook for her Grandpère and Oncle Rafe.



Between tutoring Americans in French, visiting the market, and eagerly sampling the results of Julia's studies at Le Cordon Bleu cooking school, Tabitha's sojourn is proving thoroughly delightful. That is, until the cold December day they return to Julia's building and learn that a body has been found in the cellar. Tabitha recognizes the victim as a woman she'd met only the night before, at a party given by Julia's sister, Dort. The murder weapon found nearby is recognizable too—a knife from Julia's kitchen.



Tabitha is eager to help the investigation, but is shocked when Inspector Merveille reveals that a note, in Tabitha's handwriting, was found in the dead woman's pocket. Is this murder a case of international intrigue, or something far more personal? From the shadows of the Tour Eiffel at midnight, to the tiny third-floor Child kitchen, to the grungy streets of Montmartre, Tabitha navigates through the city hoping to find the real killer before she or one of her friends ends up in prison . . . or worse.



"Part historical fiction, part mystery, Mastering the Art of French Murder is totally delectable entertainment." —The Washington Post



"Certain to appeal to a broad readership, especially fans of Jacqueline Winspear, Rhys Bowen, and Cambridge's own Phyllida Bright series." —First Clue, STARRED REVIEW

Release date: April 25, 2023

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

Julia Child had a mayonnaise problem.

I knew all about it—every sordid detail—because, first, I was one of her closest friends in Paris, and second . . . well, I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone in the seventh arrondissement—from the Place du Palais-Bourbon to the Tour Eiffel—had heard about the mayonnaise problem. Julia was just that kind of person. She was gregarious and ebullient and giddy and enthusiastic.

And I loved her dearly—probably because we were a lot alike in some ways, while in other ways, I wanted to be like her. If I could just do half the things in the kitchen that she did—or even a third of them!

Julia had been bemoaning her mayonnaise problem for a few weeks now, and I couldn’t help but worry about what that meant in the grand scheme of things. After all, if Julia, who’d been taking lessons at Le Cordon Bleu, was suddenly having problems making mayonnaise—a sauce she’d been making for months with ease and perfection—what did that mean for me, someone who could barely boil eggs?

The implications were ominous.

“I just don’t understand it!” she said as we walked down rue de l’Université, the street on which we both lived. Both of us were bundled up against the bitter December cold on our way to the market. I carried a small basket of fresh sage and rosemary bundles from my grand-père’s greenhouse for some of the vendors, but I would also be buying as well. I was hoping Julia would help me pick out a nice roasting chicken.

“Your mayonnaises have always been so delicious,” I said enviously. I had yet to create one single mayonnaise that came together properly. “So beautiful and creamy and stupendous—I can’t believe it’s still not turning out right.”

“It’s simply inexplicable,” Julia replied. “All of a sudden, the sauce is just not doing its thing! The eggs and oil won’t emulsify no matter how many times I whisk them up. I wanted to make an herbed mayonnaise last night to toss with spaghetti. But the sauce broke and simply refused to come together. I tried three times until I finally ran out of eggs. Paul had to eat spaghetti with black pepper, parmesan, and butter instead—the poor man,” she went on with a gusty, affectionate laugh. “He listened to me clang about and whisk and curse, and clang some more, and finally he was so hungry he just wanted to eat.”

Paul was Julia’s husband, and it was because of his diplomacy job with the United States Information Service that the Childs had moved to Paris a year ago. As Julia told it, the very first meal she’d eaten here in France had been like a switch that flipped inside her, or a light bulb suddenly illuminating. She’d never enjoyed food so much in her entire life. She still spoke about that serving of sole meunière in the hushed, reverent tones of someone entering a church.

As she gleefully told it to anyone who would listen, that first dining experience—followed by countless just as delectable ones—was how Julia had found her calling, her muse, her paradise: French food and the history, tradition, and preparation of it. All of it. Having been raised on flat, stolid American meals prepared by her family’s cook, she had experienced what could only be described as a great, even spiritual, awakening upon arriving in France and experiencing the food here.

Since then, Julia had become absorbed first with the taste and pleasure of eating French cuisine, then, more recently, the fascination of its history and the joy of preparing it.

Which was why the mayonnaise mystery was so disturbing to her—and to me, for Julia had been coaching me through improving my own cookery techniques over the last few months.

It was either I improve in the kitchen, or I and my grandfather and Oncle Rafe were going to be living on tinned sardines, cheese, baguette, and wine.

At least I knew how to pick out a good bottle of wine.

I had moved to the City of Light from a suburb of Detroit this past spring, right before Easter, but for an entirely different reason than the Childs.

I had recently broken off my four-year engagement to Henry McKinnon and was just about to turn twenty-nine. Since the war was over and all of the troops had come home to take on the jobs we women had been doing while the men were gone, for the last couple of years I’d been restless and at loose ends. And then my French grandmother—who’d helped raise me back in the States—had died in January after a long illness.

The next thing I knew, I was invited to come for an extended visit with my grandfather here in Paris.

My mother, who I love very much and with whom I got along pretty well—considering we were very different sorts of women—encouraged me to go and stay as long as I liked.

Maybe she was getting as tired of my moping and boredom as I was. I know my sisters couldn’t wait for me to get out of the house, but I think that was only because they were fighting over my bedroom.

During the war, I’d channeled my energies into working at the Willow Run bomber plant helping to build the B-24 Liberator planes. I’d even learned how to work on their engines. I’d always been a bit of a tomboy, to the dismay of my very ladylike French mother and grandmother. Although I carried lipstick and a comb in my purse, I also always had a Swiss Army knife in my pocket.

I liked to tinker with things like machinery and engines; I was always curious about how machines worked and what made people tick—in fact, that was partly how Julia and I had become such close friends. One day last summer when we ran into each other at the market, she mentioned that their radio wasn’t working properly.

I had my handy tool knife with me of course, so I offered to try to fix it. She was so grateful when I did, and when I wouldn’t accept any payment for the work, she insisted I stay for dinner. I’d never had such good food outside of a restaurant, and that was when I realized I needed to learn how to cook. If I could fix an airplane engine, I could roast a chicken. It couldn’t be that difficult, could it?

Yes. Yes, it could.

The fact that Julia and I lived on the same block and had both recently moved to Paris from the States made it seem like our friendship was meant to be.

Not that it was difficult for Julia Child to make friends—but I was a little less outgoing than my boisterous, enthusiastic friend. And since at that time I didn’t know anyone in Paris besides my grandfather and Oncle Rafe, I had truly enjoyed getting to know Julia, her husband, Paul, and Julia’s younger sister, Dorothy, who’d come to live with them a few months ago.

“I just worry that this is a harbinger of worse things to come. What’s going to be next?” Julia was saying in her dramatic fashion as we walked along the curved path of Place du Palais-Bourbon toward the market. “What if my pie crusts refuse to flake? Or my cake icing starts to run all over? What if my soufflés start to fall as hard as the Roman Empire? What will I do? Cooking has become my life!”

“Maybe you should just start from the beginning,” I suggested, looking up at her. Julia was six feet, two inches tall and sturdily built, and I’m just a hair under five feet, five inches. My slender build and average stature has always caused comment when I mention that I’ve worked on airplanes, although I’m not exactly sure why. I didn’t have to lift them or anything. “When I’m trying to figure out why something isn’t working, I take the whole mechanism apart, piece by piece, and check every part, one by one. I make sure each piece is working properly and isn’t damaged before I move on and put things back together. Maybe you should try that.”

“Why, that makes complete sense, Tabitha!” Julia said, stopping abruptly on the sidewalk. She sounded as if I’d just handed her the key to immortal life. “That’s how Chef Bugnard has been teaching us at Le Cordon Bleu—to start from the very beginning and master each step before moving on. So that’s what I’ll do. I’ll go back to the very basics of mayonnaise making. I’ll make notes. I’ll experiment. I’ll make vats and vats, and more vats, of mayonnaise until I figure out what’s wrong and I fix it!”

“There’s just one thing,” I said as the market on rue de Bourgogne came into view.

“What’s that?” she asked with a frown.

“You’re going to need a lot more eggs.”

We both roared with laughter so hard we staggered like drunks along the street.

During the war, Parisians had bemoaned first the indignity of the German Occupation, then the untenable, bone-biting cold, and then the lack of food as their worst complaints. The fact that the dearth of food was ranked as less a hardship than the chill by a people who lived and breathed cuisine was testament to the cruelty of winter in the City of Light.

I had recently come to concur with the accuracy of that sentiment. Spring, summer, and autumn in Paris had been perfectly gorgeous, and I had fallen in love with the city. I explored the streets either on foot or on my bicycle and literally inhaled the city: her smells, her sights, her delicious food, and the lovely, colorful parks that had inspired artists for centuries.

But once winter roared in, my adoration of Paris had cooled—pun very much intended—slightly.

Despite Paris’s bitterly cold December, I loved that it was so easy to walk or bike the streets and to get places . . . I loved the people, the smells—even the bad ones were charming, simply because they were Parisian—and I loved the expansive boulevards and elegant honey or cream bricked buildings that had been part of Baron Haussmann’s redesign a century ago.

Parisians complained about the number of cars that thronged their streets now that the American tourists were coming in full force, but I hardly considered myself a tourist. After all, I was half French! I belonged here.

There were cats everywhere—so much so that they seemed as integral a part of the city as her famed lights and the Tour Eiffel, which rose in its airy wishbone shape only a few blocks from rue de l’Université.

And of course, there was the food—that someone else prepared—and the wine!

It was simple: Paris was heaven.

Rue de Bourgogne was the closest market to the block where Julia and I both lived. I’d found it fascinating and enlightening that when you shop at a market in Paris, you get to know all of the shopkeepers and vendors. There’s simply no other option. Everyone is friendly and insists on chatting and gossiping.

It’s so much different from the States, where one makes a mad dash into the grocery—a building, rather than a collection of vendors, shops, and carts—snatches up what they need, zips through the checkout line, and then dashes just as quickly home. “Our” market was a little community unto itself, and it was here that I met my neighbors—including Julia—and learned about all sorts of interesting foods and how to buy them.

Preparing my purchases—which I always bought with the greatest optimism—was an entirely different thing, however. I couldn’t count how many times I’d ruined a chicken or overcooked a roast.

Despite being French, neither my mother nor grandmother had cooked all that often, and when they did, it was simple American fare because that was what my father liked—and what his mother had made. So I had grown up on food much the same way Julia had: basic, boring egg noodles or boxed pasta; beef roasts with thin, tasteless gravies; too-dry roasted chickens, potatoes upon potatoes upon potatoes; and lots of corn and green beans. Thin-sliced white bread that came in a plastic bag; bread that was so spongy you could squish a slice, crust and all, into a ball the size of a cherry—and, of course, Spam. Fancy dinner parties in our world often amounted to grilled Spam topped with slices of pineapple. Sauces were cans of condensed Campbell’s soup, poured over meat or potatoes.

The coffee I drank had consisted of Folger’s mixed with hot water, and I was fond of telling Julia that my Parisian moment of sensory enlightenment had occurred when I had my first French café.

Unfortunately, coffee was the only consumable still being rationed at the end of 1949, so I couldn’t indulge as often as I would have liked at the cafés. Still, my grandfather somehow always seemed to have a more than adequate supply at home. I thought it best not to ask too many questions about that, even though everyone talked openly about the black market.

“Bonjour, Madame Marie!” Julia said gaily as we stopped to look at the shallots and onions offered by the wrinkled, round vegetable woman.

“Bonjour, Madame Child,” replied the wizened merchant, who was wrapped up in a warm coat, battered hat, and a wool blanket. Inside a small metal pail burned a tiny fire for her to warm her gnarled hands. “Bonjour, Mademoiselle Knight. And how are you this frigid Thursday morning?”

“Bonjour, madame,” I replied. “I am feeling quite pleasant except that my nose is cold and so are my toes!” To make the point, I huddled closer into my heavy woolen scarf, tucking my pointy nose inside its warm folds.

My French was flawless, thanks to my mother and grandmother, but Julia had learned the language only once she moved here. She still struggled when people spoke too fast or talked over one another. I had sat with her many times at the table in her tiny third-floor kitchen, practicing with her while eating whatever delicious food she’d prepared. It was a mutually beneficial relationship.

It was because of those times that I’d begun tutoring some of the children and wives of the American diplomats in French. At Julia’s suggestion, Paul Child had enthusiastically offered my name to some of his colleagues at the U.S. Embassy for that service.

I was fortunate enough to now have four American students and a French one—the latter whom I was helping with their English, of course—and that meant I conducted one meeting per day, usually in the morning. It was an easy schedule—if not a little boring—and I certainly would take on more students if the opportunity arose. But for the meantime, it brought me enough money to buy some of the stylish shoes and hats that I simply couldn’t deny myself from shops on the Champs-Élysées. I might enjoy climbing trees and taking apart radios, but I’d also inherited my mother’s and grandmother’s love for pretty clothes and fashionable accessories.

Where Julia spent her money on kitchen equipment—pots, pans, knives, and a variety of items I didn’t recognize, I splurged on shoes, hats, pocketbooks, and fabulous dresses, too, of course. I justified the expense because my grandfather wouldn’t even consider me paying anything for my room and board at our house on rue de l’Université.

I held my gloved hands out over the warmth of Madame Marie’s small bucket-fire as Julia poked through the old woman’s basket of shallots. The little dumpling of a grocer was known throughout the neighborhood as Marie des Quatre Saisons because she always had the best produce for every season.

Until I met Marie of the Four Seasons, I had just, well, plucked potatoes from the bin and grabbed the first zucchini I saw, and I even—quelle horreur!—had been known to purchase radishes too far past the end of their season . . . withered, dried, tasteless ones. But the very first time I visited the market, Julia and Madame Marie had taken me under their respective wings and set me straight.

Somehow, I’d ended up with them both poking their noses into my bag to see what I’d selected from the other produce stand on the rue, which was run by Monsieur Blanche.

“No, no, no, no!” cried Madame when she saw the wrinkly radishes and their wilted greens. “But, no, mademoiselle, you cannot serve those!” Before I could react, she plucked the offending vegetables and tossed them onto the ground as she cast a ferocious look toward M. Blanche’s cart. “To anyone! Not even a street dog!”

“But they’re just radishes,” I said, trying to contain my giggles at the old woman’s outrage. Apparently, this was a very serious situation.

“I thought they were just radishes too,” Julia had said earnestly. At the time, she was speaking in slow, careful French, but I understood her easily. “Until Madame informed me otherwise!”

“You will never find yourself a man if you serve him wrinkling radishes or wilted greens, mademoiselle!” Madame shoved three of her radishes at me, and I had to admit, they were far superior than the ones she’d dashed to the ground.

“That’s very true,” Julia said with her infectious laugh. “Men do not like to be reminded of anything that wilts or wrinkles or sags!”

I was so astonished by her comment—especially in front of an older woman—that I burst out laughing in a mix of horror and hilarity.

But Madame Marie was nodding sagely, and she patted my arm. “Oui, oui,” she said. “Madame Child”—she pronounced Julia’s last name “Scheeld”—“knows what she speaks, non? The men, they like the produce that is long and straight and very, very firm because it reminds them of how they are—or wish to be.”

Even as I laughed harder, I didn’t have the heart to tell either of them that I was perfectly content with the two men currently in my life—both older than me by many decades. Besides, I was already struggling to cook for Grand-père and Oncle Rafe.

Yet, perhaps they would appreciate crisp and firm radishes and not push around on their plates a meal I might prepare with them.

The Incident of the Radishes, as I’d come to think of it, not only introduced me to Julia Child and Madame Marie, but it also launched a market-wide initiative: to find me, Tabitha Knight, a man. Whether I wanted one or not.

I wasn’t the least bit brokenhearted about the end of my engagement with Henry. It had been my decision—and one that I’d waited far too long to make. My mother was the one who was devastated. I think she’d been looking forward to getting me out of the house.

The war had changed both Henry and me—as it had done to pretty much everyone I knew. Even though we’d been together since we were twenty-two and everyone assumed we’d marry—and maybe that was why it had taken me so long to break it off—I just didn’t feel right about tying the knot and settling down, raising children, and being the teacher I’d gone to school to be. It sounded boring, and would be such a letdown—like a deflated soufflé—after my Rosie-the-Riveter job during the war.

I think Henry had been just as relieved as I was to have it over, and we remained good friends. That was how we’d started: by being lab partners in chemistry at the University of Michigan. When I’d decided to booby-trap our teaching assistant’s desk with vinegar and baking soda because he gave us a B when we clearly deserved an A, Henry had covered for me.

Two weeks later, he’d enlisted.

And so today when Madame Marie asked how I was doing, she was really asking me whether I’d been on any dates or had met any interesting men. Which was why I’d ducked inside my scarf and pretended not to know what she meant. Nonetheless, the vegetable woman gave me a knowing look.

“And there will be no wrinkled radishes or potatoes for you today, non, mademoiselle?” she asked with a twinkle in her eye.

“No, I think I shall have some shallots,” I replied.

Julia plucked three shallots from the basket and offered them to me. They bulged fatly inside their papery rust-colored skins, and I could see that the spidery roots on the rounded ends were still supple and had not dried out. “How about these, Tabs? Oh, and Tabitha had a date last night,” she said to Madame, and I wanted to kick her.

Julia, not Madame Marie.

“Oh, and so you did, did you?” said the grocer, her eyes fastened on me with interest.

“It wasn’t a date,” I replied, giving Julia a dark look. She merely laughed and started to root through the basket of red potatoes. “I’m going to murder you,” I muttered to her in English.

“It was a blind date,” Julia said cheerfully, obviously unconcerned by my empty threat. “Dort set her up.”

Dort was Julia’s sister’s nickname. I found it rather amusing that it was the same name as a highway north of Detroit, not far from where I’d lived when working at the bomber plant.

“Oh, she did, did she?” Madame was very interested. “That young woman, that Dorothy, she is very tall—taller than even you, Madame Child, and so she will need a man with good, strong stature, non?”

I loved the idea of talking about Dort’s husband prospects instead of mine, and so I eagerly followed that train of thought. “Good stature, meaning that he is confident in himself and not afraid to be seen with a statuesque woman. Not necessarily taller.” I smiled at Julia, for her husband, Paul, was several inches shorter than she was and they were madly in love. He adored her, and she adored him, and even though I had no interest in “finding a man,” I did envy their relationship a little. That was probably part of the reason Julia was so determined to fix me up.

“Don’t try and change the subject, Tabs,” Julia said, grinning. “You’ve avoided it during our entire walk here, so now you’re required to spill all of the details to Madame Marie and me.”

I sighed. I supposed it was best to answer the questions now, rather than as we paraded through the market and having Julia lasso everyone else into the subject of my nonexistent love life.

“And so you will tell me about this blind date, then, mademoiselle,” said the vegetable woman. It was a statement, not a question.

“Dort had some of her friends over at Julia’s house last night, and she invited me so that I could meet one of the men from the theater where she works,” I said. “That was all it was.”

Dort had a job in the business office for the American Club Theater, which performed at Théâtre Monceau. She’d made many friends, both onstage and offstage at the company, and most of them were American. They often came over to Julia and Paul’s apartment after the shows were over, which meant they arrived late and stayed until the very early hours of the morning.

Julia and Paul didn’t mind too much, Julia told me, except that the young people did drink an awful lot of their booze. And the revelry often kept the older couple up very late. Paul was a little grumpier about it than his wife was, and he’d made Julia promise to talk to Dort about it—especially since last night’s gathering had been the third one this week.

“And this man, did you meet him?” Madame was not going to give up the topic. After all, gossip throughout the marketplace was the juice that kept her—and all the other vendors—going.

“Yes, I did. He was very nice,” I replied.

That was true. Mark Justiss of Boston had been very nice, fairly handsome, and appropriately attentive once Dort introduced us. We’d talked for a short while between glasses of whisky and wine. But he hadn’t really captured my attention in that spark-like way you want to happen when you meet a potential partner. Truthfully, I didn’t think I would ever be interested in an American man now that I had moved to Paris. American men were just sort of blah in comparison to their French counterparts.

“Oh, and that reminds me, Julia . . . I might have left my gloves at your place.”

“I haven’t seen them, but you can certainly stop up on our way back to check.”

“Perfect. Now,” I said, firmly changing the subject, “I must get some potatoes for Grand-père’s and Oncle’s dinner. Do you have any suitable ones, M. . .