All Pure Souls

Susan Merskey is freelance writer in London, Ontario.

There is a deadly August heat wave in Alsace and Inspector Aliette
Nouvelle is looking forward to her vacation. She’s been working hard
without much reward. Denied promotion to the coveted commissaire’s
post, she now finds herself working under the new acting commissaire
Claude Neon, her former assistant.

When Claude presents Aliette with the report on the murder of a Marilyn
Monroe look-alike who had been the star attraction at the upscale
brothel known as Mari Morgan’s, he assures here it’s an
open-and-shut case. But Aliette’s instincts tell her otherwise as she
embarks on an unsettling journey that leads her to an ancient cult and
the goddess who rules it. Even when Aliette goes on her eagerly awaited
vacation, she fails to gain the complete escape she wanted. Her visit to
the island of Sein, in Brittany, provokes a flashback to an earlier
episode in the life of Ondine, who lived there in 1943 during the German
occupation of France.

Brooke’s second Aliette Nouvelle mystery is a fast-paced story about
life in a brothel, cult worship, and multiple murders. If you like a
mystery to tell you more than who committed the crime, you’ll enjoy
All Pure Souls.