Review

Riveting... I know this is an overused word by reviewers, but Three Hours in Paris is, well... riveting. A terrific read. Hitler came to tour Paris on June 23, 1940, two weeks after the Nazi occupation. He stayed for only three hours, the reasons for which appear to be unknown. Using this as a backdrop, author Cara Black wonders what it was that made him flee and gives her an opportunity to write about occupied Paris, a city she knows so well through research for her 19 novels in the Aimée Le Duc series. In October 1939, American Kate Rees is living with her naval engineer husband and baby daughter at a Royal Navy base in Scotland's Orkney Islands. When her husband and baby are killed in a German attack on the base, Kate is overcome with grief and anger and, desperately seeks restitution. Given her sharpshooting skills honed in the Oregon countryside, she is recruited for a British intelligence operation to assassinate Hitler on his visit to Paris. She gets Hitler in her sights as he enters the Sacré-Coeur in Montmartre, but a child gets in the way at the last moment and she misses him, but kills a German admiral. Hitler orders the German police and the Gestapo to catch the sniper and gives them 36 hours. Kate then has to run for her life with the Nazis on her trail. Separated from a radio operator who bailed out with her, and with little or no training to guide her actions, save a few concepts drilled into her by her boss in England, Kate needs to outfox the brilliant German detective on her trail pressured by Hitler to get the sniper. Author Black paints a vivid picture of occupied Paris as the chase goes on, sequence by sequence covering much of the city. Three Hours in Paris is an extremely engaging story, fraught with tension and suspense, centered on this resourceful, courageous woman from Oregon running for her life.

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