The Paris Puzzle
Nan McCann
Type: Beta project
Genre: Mystery
Word count: 96,660
Warnings: Swearing
When a Scotland Yard forensic linguist is handed a packet of puzzling, coded documents, he finds that he has three weeks to unravel its secrets to save the UK from a Prime Minister who could be a Russian agent. A ‘Lord-of-the-Manor-as-Sleuth’ mystery with linguistic puzzles threatening British democracy, plus a complicated tangle of family relationships and recent loss.
Renowned forensic linguist, British peer, and cousin to Winston, Dr. Peter Churchill, is an Ivory Tower academic at the University of London. It’s a safe, cerebral job… or so he thinks.
After a year of grief from divorce, death, and survivor’s guilt, all Peter wants is a quiet holiday with the remaining members of his family. Instead, an elderly French academic appears, warning Peter that his mother is in danger, that his uncle’s death in 1968 was a murder, and that the Churchill family has a cupboard full of dangerous secrets.
When Peter discovers period photos, he realizes that his family was involved with these former activists and could be implicated in the crimes. Within days, he must make the leap from research geek to James Bond as he works against the clock to make headway past personal problems and lexical roadblocks to keep his family and country safe.
Nan McCann, the author of the Peter Churchill mysteries, is a life-long word and language devoteé, with a MA degree in Linguistics. She received her PhD in Higher Education (International Comparative Education) from the University of Texas at Austin.
Her manuscript, The Paris Puzzle, won runner up in Best Mystery Manuscript for 2024, in the Writer’s League of Texas Manuscript Contest. Her short story, “Don’t Judge a Book” was selected for Killer Nashville Magazine in March 2024, and her short story, “Don’t Count Your Chickens,” was published in the Sisters in Crime Dallas Anthology April 2025.
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