Aimée Leduc is a fictional French detective created by American mystery writer
Cara Black
Cara Cavell Black (born 17 February 1979) is a Zimbabwean former professional tennis player. Black was primarily a doubles specialist, winning 60 WTA Tour and 11 ITF Women's Circuit, ITF doubles titles. A former List of WTA number 1 ranked dou ...
.
Leduc is a
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
-based
private investigator
A private investigator (often abbreviated to PI; also known as a private detective, an inquiry agent or informally a wikt:private eye, private eye) is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. ...
with a
punk-rock sensibility and keen fashion sense who first appeared in print in 1998.
Overview
Leduc is
French, born to an American political activist mother and a French police investigator father. Her mother disappeared when she was eight years old from which point onwards, she was raised by her father, who removed all reminders of her mother's existence from their life.
Each story in the "Aimée Leduc Investigations" series is set in a particular quartier or arrondissement of Paris and is grounded in historical reality. The Parisienne cyber-sleuth's adventures take her to areas of Paris unknown to most readers, off the tourist track and yet often in close proximity to well-known buildings such as the
Louvre Museum
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...
or
Gare du Nord
The Gare du Nord (; ), officially Paris Nord, is one of the seven large mainline railway station termini in Paris, France. The station is served by trains that run between the capital and northern France via the Paris–Lille railway, as well ...
.
We first meet her in Paris during the mid-1990s, where having attended the famous
Sorbonne University
Sorbonne University () is a public research university located in Paris, France. The institution's legacy reaches back to the Middle Ages in 1257 when Sorbonne College was established by Robert de Sorbon as a constituent college of the Unive ...
as a
pre-med student, she decided that medicine was not her forte and chose instead to take over her father's "Leduc Detective" agency after his death during a
stakeout operation. Described by Booklist as "a delightfully unbuttoned
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Kathleen Hepburn ( Ruston; 4 May 1929 – 20 January 1993) was a British actress. Recognised as a film and fashion icon, she was ranked by the American Film Institute as the third-greatest female screen legend from the Classical Holly ...
for the twenty-first century”, Leduc is a sharp, fashionable, and quite headstrong young woman who has assumed the investigative mantle left to her by her father. She runs the agency partnership with René Friant, a dwarf friend from her Sorbonne days. They specialize in computer security, but much to René's chagrin, Aimée continually gets drawn into the murky worlds of criminal investigation and espionage. During her investigations, she often finds the need to don a
disguise
A disguise can be anything incognito which conceals one's identity or changes a person's physical appearance, including a wig, glasses, makeup, fake moustache, costume or other items. Camouflage is a type of disguise for people, animals and o ...
or
hack into government computer systems. Aimée often puts herself in danger and at times gets seriously injured.
Wearing
Chanel outfits acquired at second-hand shops and living in a drafty 19th-century apartment with her dog Miles Davis, Leduc's bohemian lifestyle can be compared with that of
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes () is a Detective fiction, fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a "Private investigator, consulting detective" in his stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with obser ...
. She is a markedly different character from Georges Simenon's
Inspector Jules Maigret who introduced a previous generation of readers to the Paris underworld. Cara Black pays homage to Simenon more than once in the series. In common with other detectives in the literary canon, Aimée's life and work sees her interacting with a host of oddball side characters. Her business partner and best friend René is a stalwart ally, and few would suspect that he's a black belt at Taekwondo. Her godfather Commissaire Morbier was her father's police partner, and he sometimes reluctantly helps her on cases by leaking information to her or applying official leverage. Inspector Melac is her implacable, hardnosed rival on the police force, a kind of Inspector Kramer to her
Nero Wolfe.
Appearances
*''Murder in the Marais'' (1998)
*''Murder in Belleville'' (2000)
*''Murder in the Sentier'' (2002)
*''Murder in the Bastille'' (2003)
*''Murder in Clichy'' (2004)
*''Murder in Montmartre'' (2005)
*''Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis'' (2007)
*''Murder in the Rue de Paradis'' (2008)
*''Murder in the Latin Quarter'' (2009)
*''Murder in the Palais Royal'' (2010)
*''Murder in Passy''
*''Murder at the Lanterne Rouge'' (2012)
*''Murder Below Montparnasse'' (2013)
*''Murder in Pigalle'' (2014)
*''Murder on the Champ de Mars'' (2015)
*''Murder on the Quai'' (2016)
*''Murder in Saint-Germain'' (2017)
*''Murder on the Left Bank'' (2018)
*''Murder in Bel-Air'' (2019)
*''Murder at the Porte de Versailles'' (2022)
References
External links
Official Cara Black siteThe Detective I Want to Be: A Year With Aimée Leduc
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leduc, Aimee
Fictional French detectives
Fictional French people
Fictional private investigators