Adrian Magson is the author of 32 books, including the Insp Lucas Rocco crime series set in 1960s France, the contemporary Harry Tate and the Marc Portman spy thrillers and more. His ‘Beginners’ non-fiction book includes many extracts from 20 years penning the page of the same name in Writing Magazine.
More information: https://www.adrianmagson.com/
1941, Paris, and Eddie Giral is treading a fine line between his job as a police detective and trying to avoid the ever watchful eyes of the German occupying forces. He is permitted to do what little he can that does not contradict what the Germans want.
But as he discovers, there are limits when it comes to murder, fraud and theft.
It’s the theft bit which has caught Eddie’s attention because the Germans turn out to have more than a little interest in relieving the French of art work worth a fortune, and shipping it off to Germany.
The death of an art dealer leads him along a trail of scraps of information about stolen paintings, forgeries and fraud, each step too close to the watchful German officers who do everything they can to get in his way.
But Eddie has other problems. His son, once in the French army, is somewhere out there, and one of the officers drops a heavy hint to Eddie that he knows where he is.
Eddie has also separated from his Senegalese lover, Dominique, but is hugely concerned about her safety considering the German attitude towards Jews and others considered non-Aryan.
Every turn in the art theft trail reveals just so much while hiding tantalising nuggets that he feels in his detective’s bones will solve the puzzle - if he is permitted to do his job.
One startling addition to the obstacles in his way is the arrival in Paris of a major figure from the German High Command, a man greedily gathering his own stack of highly valuable paintings and books to spirit out of the country.
Summoned to a meeting with this figure one day, Eddie finds himself face to face with no less a person than Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering, the number two in the Nazi Party.
Goering operates the same as the other officers, allowing Eddie room but always under a threatening cloud.
This is a superb tale told in a way that opens up a collection of truly fascinating figures, French and German, described in such a way that they flow off the page with ease and settle in the brain for a long time afterwards.
Recommended.
