The Paris Spy, by Susan Elia Macneal is the seventh in the Maggie Hope Mystery series. This has been an excellent series, although I found this one a little sad. Maggie is undercover, in Paris, with two other agents. Their cover is blown and the results are not good. Who is the mole? On a mission of her own, Maggie is searching for her half-sister, who has vanished after being rescued from a concentration camp. Back in England we meet up with the man who will be responsible for misleading the Nazi forces (as in Magic Men). (See post of August 1, 2015 for books on this fascinating subject). I'm thinking we'll see more of him in the next book. The description of Paris, and how quiet it was, brought to mind the old song "The Last Time I Saw Paris" (by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II), a lovely and sad, nostalgic look at the city before the Nazi occupation.

An unexpected connection came in Smoke and Mirrors, by Elly Griffiths (and with fairy tales, too, actually). And, it's my first Christmas read for this year, as well! This is the next book in The Magic Men series, the first being The Zig Zag Girl (April 25, 2017 post). It should be a happy time, Christmas is coming, but instead the police are looking for two missing children, found dead in a setting with fairy tale overtones. Is it a clue, or a misdirection? (See the post of November 9, 2017, for a fun twist on fairy tales).

Reading Hermit With Dog