The Purloined Love ― Further Adventures from Inspector Canal's New York Agency

The inimitable Inspector Canal grapples with love in its myriad forms – newfound love, impossible love, and even medieval love – in the latest mystery by Bruce Fink. Enchantment and romance are at the crux of this tale of discovery, delight, and passion. From New York (with love?) to Paris and the south of France, Canal – loosely based on the brilliant and inscrutable Frenchman Jacques Lacan – attempts to shed light on thousand-year-old as well as modern crimes of the heart.

In this story, where promise more often than not veils envy and inconstancy, the backdrop is Puilaurens, the legendary Cathar Castle perched atop a precipice in the Pyrenees. One misadventure after another occurs to two modern-day lovers as people and objects alike are shunted about, hidden in plain view, mesmerized, and pilfered right and left – in repetitions reminiscent of those in Edgar Allan Poe’s celebrated story, “The Purloined Letter.” Using methods of his own devising, the intrepid inspector strives to untangle the threads of love’s labors.