Brace yourself: Paris City of Night, the thriller you’ve been hearing about for the last two years, is finally out. The title tells much: Paris is a city of night, with emphasis on the N. This is a page-turner, what Diane Johnson has called “a wild ride through the dark side of Paris.” It’s a shadowy place full of fraudsters, forgers, murderers, Homeland Security operatives and aging Cold Warriors. My anti-hero is Jay Anthony Grant, aka JAG, a tough but sensitive type in midlife crisis. He’s color-blind in one eye but in no other way resembles me (he rides a BMW motorcycle, wears fancy suits, and appears to be upwardly mobile). Yes, you’re right, the midlife crisis stuff we might share. So, close your eyes, flip open the shiny cover, and imagine the son of a nasty old dead spook, a guy with serious issues about his father’s past, on his way to a vacation and his beloved fiancée in Paris. The past draws JAG into what a PR meister might call a tangled Parisian web of intrigue: an orange alert is on, New Year’s looms in the form of a twinkling Eiffel Tower, and a bunch of fanatics on both sides of the terror/fundy divide are out to make JAG’s life unpleasant. I’ll say no more.