Threads of Deception

If you love your mysteries marinated in food and fashion, and cooking on high with a feisty female protagonist, you’re in for a treat. Elle Jauffret’s debut Threads of Deception is billed as a Suddenly French Mystery for a reason—Claire Fontaine is the lone survivor of a bombing of her DC law firm, which has resulted in a case of trauma-induced Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS).

FAS leaves a person with an accent, and in her case, it’s a French accent. This causes numerous issues with everyone, from airport security to convincing a ruggedly handsome detective that she’s American.

But her accent is the least of her problems.

To recuperate and heal, Claire is invited home to Caper Cove, California, to stay with her friend, the well-known fashion designer Vee Brooks. Her supportive dad, a retired cop, also lives in Caper Cove. He runs a “cop bar” and rents rooms in his building. Vee has also offered her villa to Claire’s best friend Sugie Oh for her wedding on the same weekend. Vee will be very busy as she is the star and favorite finalist of the highly popular Fashion Warriors TV show. Claire, besides being a criminal lawyer, studies the culinary arts as a hobby and has offered to cater Sugie’s wedding, hoping that will keep her mind off the bombing and what her future looks like.

But when Claire arrives in Caper Cover, Vee’s villa is police-taped, and Vee has been murdered. Claire and Sugie aren’t allowed in the place. Upset, Claire takes her dad’s offer to stay in one of his rental rooms, where he’s also rented a room to Torres, the handsome but rather inexperienced police detective, who takes on Vee’s murder. Claire, as a skilled investigative attorney, never leaves a wrong unaddressed or unrectified. She needs to find out what happened to her friend, and as her skills are better than Torres, conflict arises between them even though there’s a spark, too. Claire makes it her mission to find Vee’s killer by the weekend so that Sugie can continue with her plans to use the villa for her wedding. Claire knows Vee would want it that way.

But obstacle after obstacle boils over. The suspects include Vee’s arch-rivals for the fashion show, Cordelia Jones and Vinyl, the producer of the show, Karl Smith, and Vee’s missing husband. As Claire digs deep into the fashion world, she finds some pretty nasty secrets, including the use of puffer fish to kill Vee and others that can get Claire killed.

Steeped within the story is a family mystery. Claire’s sister Aurora went missing twenty-two years ago and has never been found. Claire promises to find out what happened to her sister in this debut, and that portends a Suddenly French Mystery series.

Jauffret writes in a clean, clear style, and her strength is using details that bring the fascinating cutthroat world of fashion to life, including how organic materials are sourced. Also, keep a napkin nearby because the food references will make you drool.

Hopefully, we’ll see more of Claire’s physical and mental reaction to the DC bombing now that she’s home and settled. And what about that bombing? Will we hear more? No one can go through an incident like that without it resulting in a severe case of PTSD. That will certainly affect anything she takes on in the future. With such a great father and best friend, she’ll be well supported. But we all know that anyone who is close to an investigator of deadly crimes becomes vulnerable. And what about that accent? Jauffret shows how dismissive and rude Americans can be to people they perceive as outsiders while also using this for humorous interactions and obstacles. Will Claire ever be cured of FAS? I doubt it, not as long as the series continues.

Special thanks to the author and the publisher, Level Best Books, for an advanced review copy.