The St-Cyr and Kohler Mysteries
Latest release: July 21, 2015
Series
15
Books
About this ebook series
A French inspector and Gestapo detective team up to fight crime in Nazi-occupied Paris during World War II: “The offbeat pair gel . . . fast and convincing” (The Oxford Times).
Police inspector Jean-Louis St-Cyr watches the German tanks roll into Paris from his office window. When Gestapo agents burst through his door, he is destroying confidential documents with the care that is his trademark. As the Nazis take control of the city, they allow St-Cyr to remain at his post, solving the everyday crimes which do not stop simply because there is a war on. He is assigned a partner, Bavarian detective Hermann Kohler, a bullish man who is as brutal as St-Cyr is refined. Though their politics differ, neither man is the sort to let a bad deed go unpunished. Today their work takes them to a suburban forest, where a well-dressed young man has been found murdered and stripped of identification. Nearby lies an expensive beaded silk purse. Although it appears to be a crime of passion, its roots lie in the savagery that wartime nurtures and occupation lets run free.
Police inspector Jean-Louis St-Cyr watches the German tanks roll into Paris from his office window. When Gestapo agents burst through his door, he is destroying confidential documents with the care that is his trademark. As the Nazis take control of the city, they allow St-Cyr to remain at his post, solving the everyday crimes which do not stop simply because there is a war on. He is assigned a partner, Bavarian detective Hermann Kohler, a bullish man who is as brutal as St-Cyr is refined. Though their politics differ, neither man is the sort to let a bad deed go unpunished. Today their work takes them to a suburban forest, where a well-dressed young man has been found murdered and stripped of identification. Nearby lies an expensive beaded silk purse. Although it appears to be a crime of passion, its roots lie in the savagery that wartime nurtures and occupation lets run free.
Mayhem
Book 1 · Jun 2012 ·
1.0star
A French inspector and Gestapo detective team up to fight crime in Nazi-occupied Paris during World War II: “The offbeat pair gel . . . fast and convincing” (The Oxford Times).
Police inspector Jean-Louis St-Cyr watches the German tanks roll into Paris from his office window. When Gestapo agents burst through his door, he is destroying confidential documents with the care that is his trademark. As the Nazis take control of the city, they allow St-Cyr to remain at his post, solving the everyday crimes which do not stop simply because there is a war on. He is assigned a partner, Bavarian detective Hermann Kohler, a bullish man who is as brutal as St-Cyr is refined. Though their politics differ, neither man is the sort to let a bad deed go unpunished. Today their work takes them to a suburban forest, where a well-dressed young man has been found murdered and stripped of identification. Nearby lies an expensive beaded silk purse. Although it appears to be a crime of passion, its roots lie in the savagery that wartime nurtures and occupation lets run free.
Police inspector Jean-Louis St-Cyr watches the German tanks roll into Paris from his office window. When Gestapo agents burst through his door, he is destroying confidential documents with the care that is his trademark. As the Nazis take control of the city, they allow St-Cyr to remain at his post, solving the everyday crimes which do not stop simply because there is a war on. He is assigned a partner, Bavarian detective Hermann Kohler, a bullish man who is as brutal as St-Cyr is refined. Though their politics differ, neither man is the sort to let a bad deed go unpunished. Today their work takes them to a suburban forest, where a well-dressed young man has been found murdered and stripped of identification. Nearby lies an expensive beaded silk purse. Although it appears to be a crime of passion, its roots lie in the savagery that wartime nurtures and occupation lets run free.
Kaleidoscope
Book 3 · Jun 2012 ·
0.0star
DIVIn Provence, St-Cyr and Kohler investigate an old-fashioned murder/divDIV/divDIVThe train ride from Paris is supposed to take four hours, but a Resistance bomb has snarled the tracks, and detectives Jean-Louis St-Cyr and Hermann Kohler are fourteen hours behind schedule. By the time they arrive in Provence, they are travel-weary but intrigued. Even in wartime, it’s rare to investigate a murder by crossbow./divDIV /divDIVThe woman was in her early fifties, with well-made clothing and opal earrings that indicate that, until war came, she was wealthy. The crossbow bolt was barbed, and as she tried to pull it out, it shredded her heart. St-Cyr and Kohler quickly learn why the villagers are loath to cooperate: The woman was a smuggler, killed to protect the black market that the inhabitants of this frigid, war-wracked countryside cannot survive without./div
Mannequin
Book 5 · Jun 2012 ·
0.0star
DIVA young girl vanishes, leaving nothing behind but a pile of nude photos/divDIV/divDIVSince the Germans occupied Paris, police inspector Jean-Louis St-Cyr has not been able to work a murder, robbery, or arson case without his German overlords demanding he work faster. His partner, Bavarian detective Hermann Kohler, does not share the sadism of many of his Gestapo colleagues, but he, too, has an obsession with speed. Their latest case calls for a sprint. For if they don’t work quickly, a girl will die./divDIV /divDIVJoanne was a neighbor of St-Cyr’s who answered a modeling ad and never came home. By the time St-Cyr and Kohler break down the door of the supposed agency, all that remains are snapshots of Joanne and others posing naked at gunpoint. Complicating their search is a massive bank robbery perpetrated the day Joanne disappeared. If they can find the connection between the two crimes, the girl will be safe—or at least as safe as a Parisian can be in the winter of 1942./div
Dollmaker
Book 6 · Jun 2012 ·
0.0star
DIVA high-ranking German sailor is accused of petty, brutal murder/divDIV/divDIVAs Allied bombers rain death on the German submarine pens of occupied France, police inspectors Jean-Louis St-Cyr and Hermann Kohler stumble through the darkness to a crime scene. A shopkeeper lies dead, head bashed in with a railway tie, surrounded by fragments of a shattered porcelain doll. It appears to be an open-and-shut case, which would make the detectives’ job simple if the obvious suspect weren’t a decorated U-Boat commander./divDIV /divDIVFeared by the British, beloved by his crew, Kapitän Kaestner is a killer with a hobby: the manufacture of high-quality dolls. Before World War I ruined their business, generations of Kaestners produced the finest dolls on the continent. The shopkeeper’s death comes not long after he and Kaestner fail to revive the dollmaking trade. Now, shrouded by a blackout, St-Cyr and Kohler begin the unenviable task of pinning a murder on the pride of the German fleet./div
Stonekiller
Book 7 · Jun 2012 ·
0.0star
DIVA woman is found butchered not far from an archaeological site/divDIV/divDIVIn the woods of the Dordogne, farmers and their pigs hunt the forest floor for truffles. It is June 1942, and one such farmer has found something unusual: the postmaster’s wife, murdered and left to rot beneath the trees. By the time police inspectors Jean-Louis St-Cyr and Hermann Kohler arrive from Paris, she has been dead four days, and the flies have begun to feast. As Kohler combs the area, finding a picnic basket, two bottles of Champagne, and a collection of poisonous mushrooms, St-Cyr turns the body on its back. The woman has been mutilated, hacked to pieces by a blunt ax./divDIV /divDIVShe died steps from the famous Lascaux caves, an invaluable archaeological site that has attracted the Führer’s attention. The SS is about to descend on the area, a film crew in tow, confounding the investigation as they swarm like the flies on the postmaster’s wife./div
Sandman
Book 8 · Jun 2012 ·
0.0star
DIVIn the dead of winter, a serial killer targets the children of Paris/divDIV/divDIVIt is January 1943, and as Germany reels from the defeat at Stalingrad, Hermann Kohler learns that his sons were among the German casualties. He has no choice but to set grief aside and continue working, solving everyday cases in and around Paris. Today he and his partner, Jean-Louis St-Cyr, examine the corpse of a murdered girl. As St-Cyr examines the crime scene, Kohler is overwhelmed; after seeing countless corpses, he can no longer stand it./divDIV /divDIVThis slender schoolgirl is the fifth victim of the serial killer named Sandman. Like the others, she was stabbed to death with a knitting needle and left in plain sight—in this case, in a birdcage in the Bois de Boulogne. Kohler can do nothing for this girl or for his own sons, but for the sake of France’s children, he will send Sandman to the guillotine./div
Gypsy
Book 9 · Jun 2012 ·
0.0star
DIVAn international safecracker steals diamonds destined for the Reich/divDIV/divDIVA tip comes in to the Gestapo, warning of an impending burglary at the Paris Ritz. The target is the room of a special attaché to the German Ministry of Production, where a safe contains a cache of diamonds intended for use in arms manufacture. When inspectors Jean-Louis St-Cyr and Hermann Kohler arrive, backed up by a Berlin cop, the safe is intact. But when they turn the dial to inspect its contents, it explodes, leaving the policemen shaken but unharmed, and ruining one of the finest suites in the Ritz./divDIV /divDIVThe burglar has already come and gone, leaving the safe rigged with nitroglycerin as a surprise for his pursuers. His codename is Gypsy, and he has deviled the Reich for years. St-Cyr and Kohler will do their best to unmask him, but as they learned long ago, no crime is simple when the victims are servants of the Thousand Year Reich./div
Madrigal
Book 10 · Jun 2012 ·
0.0star
In Nazi-occupied France, a French-German detective team must solve a murder in Avignon’s Papal Palace—“Plenty of atmosphere and a great setting” (The Globe and Mail).
Six hundred years before the Germans conquered Paris, the pope came to Avignon to rule the Roman Church from afar. In January 1943, Jean-Louis St-Cyr and Hermann Kohler visit the former Papal Palace—not as tourists, but as detectives. Where once the pope spoke to God, a woman has had her throat cut. Her corpse seems to have appeared from out of the past. Despite the strictures of wartime rationing, she died in finery, costumed in the ermine and silk of a Renaissance courtier. She appears to have been killed with a scythe, pulled across her neck in one swift stroke, like a shepherd slaughtering a sheep. Wartime Avignon is a small city, steeped in the jealousy that occupation encourages. As St-Cyr and Kohler dig into the city’s past, they find motives for murder that predate the Nazis by centuries.
Six hundred years before the Germans conquered Paris, the pope came to Avignon to rule the Roman Church from afar. In January 1943, Jean-Louis St-Cyr and Hermann Kohler visit the former Papal Palace—not as tourists, but as detectives. Where once the pope spoke to God, a woman has had her throat cut. Her corpse seems to have appeared from out of the past. Despite the strictures of wartime rationing, she died in finery, costumed in the ermine and silk of a Renaissance courtier. She appears to have been killed with a scythe, pulled across her neck in one swift stroke, like a shepherd slaughtering a sheep. Wartime Avignon is a small city, steeped in the jealousy that occupation encourages. As St-Cyr and Kohler dig into the city’s past, they find motives for murder that predate the Nazis by centuries.
Beekeeper
Book 11 · Jun 2012 ·
0.0star
DIVSt-Cyr and Kohler uncover a black market beekeeping conspiracy/divDIV/divDIVDuring winter, the bees of Paris huddle into spheres, sacrificing some of the drones to keep the queen warm. In the winter of 1943, as rationing limits access to luxury goods, those at the top of Parisian society think nothing of sacrificing the poor for the sake of the black market./divDIV /divDIVThe latest casualty is a beekeeper, murdered in his apiary after getting in the way of a smuggling operation. The next night, burglars rob his hives, taking several kilos of honey at the expense of 300,000 bees. As news filters in about the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who died in the fight for Stalingrad, the massacre of the bees seems insignificant. But to inspectors Jean-Louis St-Cyr and Hermann Kohler, the dead bees point to a conspiracy that, if revealed, could send Paris into revolt./div
Flykiller
Book 12 · Jun 2012 ·
0.0star
DIVIn Vichy, a dead mistress points to an assassination plot/divDIV/divDIVAt the Battle of Verdun, Marshal Philippe Pétain’s heroic leadership won him the respect and admiration of all of France. In the decades that follow the Great War, his ambition is boundless, but not until Hitler arrives does he claim the job he’s always wanted. When the Wehrmacht subdue the French army, Pétain takes the reins of his conquered nation, becoming World War II’s most infamous collaborator./divDIV /divDIVIn February 1943, as the war turns against Germany, Pétain administers his puppet state from the spa town of Vichy. In his eighties, but still able to admire a pretty face, he asks to borrow the mistress of one of his subordinates. Before she arrives, the girl is murdered. Fearing a plot against his life, Pétain calls in inspectors Jean-Louis St-Cyr and Hermann Kohler. But they find something far more sinister than a conspiracy against the war hero who became a war criminal./div
Bellringer
Book 13 · Jun 2012 ·
0.0star
Set in Nazi-occupied France, this is an “enthralling, character-propelled” police procedural (Kirkus Reviews).
Before the war, the hotels of Vittel hosted the wealthiest members of French society. Now, in the winter of 1943, two of France’s most luxurious resorts have been converted into an internment camp for British and American women who failed to escape the country when the German army stormed across the border. For two years, the prisoners have lived quietly, surviving on Red Cross aid packages, but now they are beginning to die. An American woman is found stabbed through the heart with a pitchfork. By the time inspectors Jean-Louis St-Cyr and Hermann Kohler arrive from Paris, rigor mortis and the February frost have frozen her solid. In her pockets are Cracker Jacks and Hershey bars—bribes intended for one of the guards. To bring justice to Vittel, St-Cyr and Kohler will have to unravel the conspiracy that is at the heart of this luxurious, elegant hell.
Before the war, the hotels of Vittel hosted the wealthiest members of French society. Now, in the winter of 1943, two of France’s most luxurious resorts have been converted into an internment camp for British and American women who failed to escape the country when the German army stormed across the border. For two years, the prisoners have lived quietly, surviving on Red Cross aid packages, but now they are beginning to die. An American woman is found stabbed through the heart with a pitchfork. By the time inspectors Jean-Louis St-Cyr and Hermann Kohler arrive from Paris, rigor mortis and the February frost have frozen her solid. In her pockets are Cracker Jacks and Hershey bars—bribes intended for one of the guards. To bring justice to Vittel, St-Cyr and Kohler will have to unravel the conspiracy that is at the heart of this luxurious, elegant hell.
Tapestry
Book 14 · Jun 2013 ·
0.0star
DIVA series of interlocking crimes send St-Cyr and Kohler into the heart of the Parisian underworld
It is February 1943, and Paris is under a blackout. For three years, the French inspector Jean-Louis St-Cyr and Hermann Kohler of the Gestapo have investigated the mundane violence of Nazi-occupied France, but never have they experienced such a cold, sleeting winter. While investigating a burgled stamp collector’s shop, they get a call telling them that they went to the wrong crime scene—they were supposed to have been sent to comfort a woman who was attacked for running around with Nazis and their collaborators. The rapist’s timing was perfect—so perfect that the two detectives wonder if they were deliberately sent to the wrong place.
They next follow up on a tip about a body dumped in a cellar. The young man they find has been stripped naked, savagely murdered, and left to rot. Was he a homosexual? A pimp? A Resistance fighter? Theft, murder, rape—conspiracy. It is just another night in Paris under the Nazis./div
It is February 1943, and Paris is under a blackout. For three years, the French inspector Jean-Louis St-Cyr and Hermann Kohler of the Gestapo have investigated the mundane violence of Nazi-occupied France, but never have they experienced such a cold, sleeting winter. While investigating a burgled stamp collector’s shop, they get a call telling them that they went to the wrong crime scene—they were supposed to have been sent to comfort a woman who was attacked for running around with Nazis and their collaborators. The rapist’s timing was perfect—so perfect that the two detectives wonder if they were deliberately sent to the wrong place.
They next follow up on a tip about a body dumped in a cellar. The young man they find has been stripped naked, savagely murdered, and left to rot. Was he a homosexual? A pimp? A Resistance fighter? Theft, murder, rape—conspiracy. It is just another night in Paris under the Nazis./div
Carnival
Book 15 · May 2014 ·
0.0star
Amid the ruins of an abandoned Alsatian carnival, St-Cyr and Kohler investigate a pair of suspicious suicides
During the Great War, Hermann Kohler and Jean-Louis St-Cyr fought in Alsace on opposite sides of the barbed wire. Two decades later, they return as partners: a Gestapo officer and a French cop investigating everyday crimes in a world gone mad with war. In February 1943, Alsace is unrecognizable—an occupied country where speaking French is all it takes to lose one’s freedom. St-Cyr and Kohler have been summoned to a POW camp where soldiers and résistants manufacture textiles on the grounds of a deserted carnival. Where industry and warfare overlap, they will find a conspiracy worthy of the most twisted house of mirrors.
Two prisoners of this garish, decrepit circus have killed themselves, and the jailers must at least make a show of finding out why. Although the trenches of the Great War are long gone, St-Cyr and Kohler find that in Alsace, the fires of battle smolder still.
During the Great War, Hermann Kohler and Jean-Louis St-Cyr fought in Alsace on opposite sides of the barbed wire. Two decades later, they return as partners: a Gestapo officer and a French cop investigating everyday crimes in a world gone mad with war. In February 1943, Alsace is unrecognizable—an occupied country where speaking French is all it takes to lose one’s freedom. St-Cyr and Kohler have been summoned to a POW camp where soldiers and résistants manufacture textiles on the grounds of a deserted carnival. Where industry and warfare overlap, they will find a conspiracy worthy of the most twisted house of mirrors.
Two prisoners of this garish, decrepit circus have killed themselves, and the jailers must at least make a show of finding out why. Although the trenches of the Great War are long gone, St-Cyr and Kohler find that in Alsace, the fires of battle smolder still.
Clandestine
Book 16 · Jul 2015 ·
0.0star
A hijacked delivery vehicle draws St-Cyr and Kohler back to the killing fields of World War I
The last time Jean-Louis St-Cyr visited the ruins of this ancient abbey, during one of the bloodiest campaigns of the Great War, a sniper nearly killed him. Three decades later, death has brought him here again. Ever since the German occupation of France, the chief inspector has worked alongside German detective inspector Hermann Kohler, solving crimes too common to pique the Gestapo’s interest. Now, during the fall of 1943, the war is going badly for the Third Reich, but conflicts continue to plague these two unlikely allies.
A bank-owned cargo van is parked near the crumbling monastery, its contents ransacked, its passengers murdered. The killers took small bills but left behind a bounty in smuggled champagne, cheese, and coffee. Even more confounding is the expensive pair of high heels left behind. Were the thieves from the Resistance, or from the underworld? Who is the mysterious woman who was wearing those shoes? St-Cyr and Kohler have a feeling that the answers are hiding in the cold French rain.
The last time Jean-Louis St-Cyr visited the ruins of this ancient abbey, during one of the bloodiest campaigns of the Great War, a sniper nearly killed him. Three decades later, death has brought him here again. Ever since the German occupation of France, the chief inspector has worked alongside German detective inspector Hermann Kohler, solving crimes too common to pique the Gestapo’s interest. Now, during the fall of 1943, the war is going badly for the Third Reich, but conflicts continue to plague these two unlikely allies.
A bank-owned cargo van is parked near the crumbling monastery, its contents ransacked, its passengers murdered. The killers took small bills but left behind a bounty in smuggled champagne, cheese, and coffee. Even more confounding is the expensive pair of high heels left behind. Were the thieves from the Resistance, or from the underworld? Who is the mysterious woman who was wearing those shoes? St-Cyr and Kohler have a feeling that the answers are hiding in the cold French rain.
Clandestine
Book 16 · Jul 2015 ·
0.0star
A hijacked delivery vehicle draws St-Cyr and Kohler back to the killing fields of World War I
The last time Jean-Louis St-Cyr visited the ruins of this ancient abbey, during one of the bloodiest campaigns of the Great War, a sniper nearly killed him. Three decades later, death has brought him here again. Ever since the German occupation of France, the chief inspector has worked alongside German detective inspector Hermann Kohler, solving crimes too common to pique the Gestapo’s interest. Now, during the fall of 1943, the war is going badly for the Third Reich, but conflicts continue to plague these two unlikely allies.
A bank-owned cargo van is parked near the crumbling monastery, its contents ransacked, its passengers murdered. The killers took small bills but left behind a bounty in smuggled champagne, cheese, and coffee. Even more confounding is the expensive pair of high heels left behind. Were the thieves from the Resistance, or from the underworld? Who is the mysterious woman who was wearing those shoes? St-Cyr and Kohler have a feeling that the answers are hiding in the cold French rain.
The last time Jean-Louis St-Cyr visited the ruins of this ancient abbey, during one of the bloodiest campaigns of the Great War, a sniper nearly killed him. Three decades later, death has brought him here again. Ever since the German occupation of France, the chief inspector has worked alongside German detective inspector Hermann Kohler, solving crimes too common to pique the Gestapo’s interest. Now, during the fall of 1943, the war is going badly for the Third Reich, but conflicts continue to plague these two unlikely allies.
A bank-owned cargo van is parked near the crumbling monastery, its contents ransacked, its passengers murdered. The killers took small bills but left behind a bounty in smuggled champagne, cheese, and coffee. Even more confounding is the expensive pair of high heels left behind. Were the thieves from the Resistance, or from the underworld? Who is the mysterious woman who was wearing those shoes? St-Cyr and Kohler have a feeling that the answers are hiding in the cold French rain.