Seventh Street Books
Featuring: Tom Green; Bart Denum; Hugo Marston
ISBN: 1633880028 EAN: 9781633880023 Kindle: B00NEUI2P8 Paperback / e-Book Add to Wish List
Fifth in the Hugo Marston series, this mystery
begins in
modern Paris. A young American woman goes missing, and
Marston, who is a Texan, is asked to find her. Marston used
to be with the FBI and now works as security for the US
Embassy in Paris. Disappearing is not a crime, but the
missing girl's family, friends of Marston's, are worried.
THE RELUCTANT MATADOR starts with a dead body being pulled
from the River Seine - an omen?
Marston's friend Tom, on and off the wagon as he recovers
from his years with the CIA, helps investigate the missing
girl's disappearance. Amy is nineteen, unattached, hoping
to get
model work and enjoy Paris. Why would she disappear? A girl
friend says Amy had a business card from some Spanish man.
It's not much of a lead, but it's all they've got.
I found the style easy to slip into which is very helpful
as I had not read any earlier books in the series. Marston
is worldly wise but concerned about his close friends. He
has a sort-of relationship with a haughty reporter,
Claudia, but because I'm new to the story I got her mixed
up with a lady called Camille who also makes an appearance.
Amy turns out to have found it easier to make money by
saucy dancing in Pigalle, the
nightclub area of Paris, rather than modelling. The men
trace her from there to
Barcelona with her Spanish contact. Whatever she's doing
is her own business, but she's not using her phone or
e-mail. Tom carries Marston along into the wonderful world
of CIA accommodation in Barcelona.
The dead body is needed at the start to establish a feeling
of tension and dread, because up to this point the men just
come across as being nosey - concerned, yes, but paternally
nosey. And for foreigners in both France and Spain, they
are surprisingly willing to break and enter. That's when
the local police get involved. While we see a good deal of
life in the two countries, it's all from the point of view
of Americans who chat continually about being tourists.
THE RELUCTANT MATADOR is a very
interesting crime story. Mark Pryor has cornered a good
niche. and I will certainly be checking out his earlier
works. Expect some strong language and sinister workings in
THE RELUCTANT MATADOR, which investigates an unpleasant
black market.
A nineteen-year-old aspiring model has disappeared in
Paris.
Her father, Bart Denum, turns to his old friend Hugo
Marston
for help. Marston, the security chief at the American
Embassy, makes some inquiries and quickly realizes
something
is amiss: Bart’s daughter was not a model, but rather a
dancer at a seedy strip club. And she headed to Barcelona
with some guy she met at the club.
With his friend and former CIA agent, Tom Green, Marston
heads for Barcelona. The two sleuths identify the man last
seen with the girl, break into his house, and encounter a
shocking scene: Bart Denum, standing over the dead and
battered body of their mysterious stranger. Though Bart
protests his innocence, under the damning circumstances,
Spanish authorities arrest him for murder.
The two American investigators are faced with their biggest
challenge ever: find the real killer, prove Bart’s
innocence, and locate his missing daughter—without getting
killed along the way.
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