Posh thriller

This being a higher grade thriller by one Charles Belfoure, coming in a decently produced paperback from Sourcebooks, picked up on a recent passage through the Raynes Park platform library. Neither Belfoure nor Sourcebooks having previously been heard of.

Belfoure is an academic, writing architect rather than a practising one, in his mid sixties, the son of a long service sailor in the US Navy and a Polish immigrant, perhaps one of the millions of Poles displaced before, during and after the second world war. While Sourcebooks is an independent publisher, a sector which I believe to be stronger in the US than it is here in the UK. Mission reproduced at reference 3.

The story is set in the early 1940's in occupied Paris, a time when the tide was starting to turn, but it was not yet at all clear who was going to win the war, or for how long it might go on. The story concerns an architect who, rather against his better judgement, gets sucked into designing elaborate hiding places for rich Jews, hiding places which will not be turned up by even quite savage searches. Rich Jews whom the Germans wanted to get their hands on so that they could run down and confiscate their property, not least the fancy art works. Then kill them, more or less unpleasantly. As part of this the architect also does design work for some of the armaments factories that the Germans were building in France. Plugged into the world of fashion, which provides the ladies with which to decorate the story. 

A 20th century French version of the priest holes to be found in the stately homes of Elizabethan England, getting on for 500 years earlier.

We are reminded of the sometimes savage behaviour of the German occupiers, particularly the SS and Gestapo elements. While there is at least one civilised officer - a structural engineer - in the regular army. We are reminded of the way that ordinary French people were sucked into more or less illegal activity and into working with the Germans, quite possibly on their war effort. That some people did nothing to help the Jews - everyone for himself, helped along by a considerable amount of anti-Semitic feeling in France at the time - while others put their lives - and the lives of their neighbours - on the line to try and help.

We are also reminded of the human cost of blowing up one of those armaments factories: the Germans might shoot a hundred hostages on each occasion. A cost which meant that not everyone thought that such blowing up was a good idea.

A brisk, easy read thriller of getting on for 400 pages, but one which is set in an unusual context.

The sprinkling of architectural chit-chat sometimes intrudes, while the sprinkling of various improbabilities do not seem to matter very much.

PS 1: the snap of the Rue des Saussaies above, lifted from gmaps, literally Willow Grove or something of that sort, a street which features prominently in both this book and Maigret. Here mainly as the HQ of the German army of occupation, there as the home of what I think we would call the Security Service, in any event an outfit with which Maigret's Police judiciare has an uneasy relationship. Now home to the French version of the Home Office. A much narrower street than that in which our own Home Office is to be found, perhaps reflecting the fact that Paris is a rather older city.

PS 2: rather more information about the loss of control of body functions when under stress than would be given in a book by a UK author. I have noticed this in books by US authors before and put it down to the admixture of too many German genes.

References

Reference 1: The Paris Architect - Charles Belfoure - 2013.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Belfoure.

Reference 3: https://www.sourcebooks.com/. 'Our mission: Sourcebooks' mission is to reach as many people as possible through books that will enlighten their lives. ​We are a company bound together by the idea that books change lives. Sourcebooks - an independent vision. For us, it means a passion for books and a dedication to the belief that books change lives. It means innovative publishing, where every book is personal and every author’s voice has a place. And it means not being afraid to say “I don’t know” and forging a new path when we have to. We are a group of passionate, energetic and enthusiastic book lovers, and we are committed to helping readers experience each book. Thank you for being a part of our story. So much has changed since we started this journey twenty plus years ago in a spare bedroom - the industry, the technology, the world. And at Sourcebooks, things are no different. The conversations we get to have now are different from those we had even just five short years ago. We’ve launched new imprints to great success and built the careers of authors whose voices have a vital place in today’s community. But what hasn’t changed for us is our passion for books and our dedication to the belief that books change lives. All voices matter. So while our current list may be different than those first few books, you can bet that our mission hasn’t and won’t change one bit. If anything we find ourselves even more committed to that conviction than ever before. So take a fresh look at Sourcebooks. The Sourcebooks you thought you knew has grown up a bit - we just might surprise you'.