Aimée Leduc

Aimée Leduc is a fictional character who first appeared in print in 1998. She is the creation of author Cara Black. She is a Paris-based, modern, female, private investigator. The bestselling mystery series is called Aimée Leduc Investigations.

Aimée Leduc is French, born to an American mother and a French police investigator. Her mother disappeared when she was eight years old. She was raised by her father, who removed all reminders of her mother's existence. She lives in Paris during the 1990s. She attended the famous Sorbonne as a pre-med student, but decided that medicine is not her forte and chose to take over the Leduc Investigation firm after her father's death during a stakeout. She specializes in computer investigation with her partner Rene, her friend from her Sorbonne days. Her adventures take her to areas of Paris unknown to most readers. Each of her stories is grounded in historical reality. She has been described by Booklist as, "...a delightfully unbuttoned Audrey Hepburn for the twenty-first century….”, but with a punk-rock attitude and in far more dangerous settings. Leduc is a sharp, fashionable, hip, and quite headstrong young woman who has assumed the investigative mantle left to her by her father. During the course of her investigations she often finds a need for disguise or for hacking into computer systems. Aimée often puts herself in danger and at times gets injured. In one dramatic scene in Murder in Bastille she was blinded, though later her vision was restored.

Wearing Chanel outfits that she has acquired at second-hand shops, Leduc's unconventional attitude can be compared with Sherlock Holmes' "Bohemian" lifestyle. As do many detectives, she has a satellite-system of oddball side characters. René Friant, a dwarf and computer expert, is her partner. Commissaire Morbier is her god-father and sometimes helps her on cases or with official leverage. Inspector Melac is her implacable, hardnosed rival on the police force, a kind of Inspector Kramer to Nero Wolfe.

The Leduc series often explores in realistic detail her fictional Parisienne community, ambience, and landscape. It is also notable for interweaving complex familial intrigue and emotions into the standard mystery plots. She is always in search of her father's murderer, her vanished mother, and, in the later books, involved with sibling-related subplots.

The Aimée Leduc Investigation series has been translated into five languages.