MYSTERY

Alice B. Toklas Is Missing

Regal House. Nov. 2023. 274p. ISBN 9781646033850. pap. $18.95. M
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DEBUT Poet Archambeau’s first novel is set in post–World War I Paris. Chicago artist Ida Caine travels with her new husband, Teddy, to the City of Light. She wants to paint, and he wants to write. They soon find their way to the salon of Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas, where Teddy is accepted readily, Ida is invited to the wives’ group, and they encounter a variety of painters, poets, and writers. One day, Alice disappears, and Gertrude asks Teddy to find her. Then Teddy vanishes as well, and Ida takes up the search, enlisting her new friends. They are quickly drawn into a web of lies and danger, including a terrorist plan to destroy key buildings.
VERDICT With a multilayered plot, real figures from Jazz Age Paris, and puzzles for Ida and her friends to figure out, this novel will appeal to fans of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code or Sulari Gentill’s A Few Right Thinking Men.
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