The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure

This story is so much more than a taut thriller set in Nazi-occupied Paris – though it certainly is that as well. Lucien Bernard is a talented architect who loves his work. He has a wife and a mistress and is trying to make a living under the current regime. He is intelligent but not particularly introspective.  Then a wealthy businessman contacts him with a proposition: create the perfect hiding place for a Jewish friend of the businessman.

Lucien is not anti-Semitic, he doesn’t like the Nazis, but he’s not a fanatic. Money is tight and the commission would be a financial Godsend, but if he were caught or exposed, it would mean torture and death. This is too dangerous to consider. However, the creative side of his brain is truly challenged and temptation builds – especially as funds diminish - and he finally agrees to this onetime only commission.

Of course, it does not remain a onetime only and he continues to make brilliant, unique hiding places based on the architecture of each building. Until one fails fatally and he realizes he has become far more emotionally invested in the people and his work than just clever gamesmanship against the Gestapo. These are all high profile Jews the Gestapo has been seeking relentlessly. They know somehow, someone has been aiding them and the pressure to both capture the Jews and break up the conspiracy that’s protecting them is getting unbearable.

As danger is mounting and the stakes are getting higher Lucien is faced with making the ultimate choice: is he committed to this path he’s been traveling or will he, can he turn his back on it and disappear?

The setting of 1942 Paris makes the creation of Lucien’s crisis easily comprehensible, but The Paris Architect is also the perfect vehicle for examining one of life’s ultimate questions: when the essence of who I am is called out, how will I respond?

cas

  

The Postmistress by Sarah Blake

The Postmistress involves three women's experiences on the brink of world war. Iris James, postmistress of Franklin, Massachusetts silently observes what happens in town. She holds it all in tightly, never disclosing what she observes. Emma Trask has married Will Fitch, a young doctor in Franklin. Alone in the world, Emma hopes to find a home with Will. As daily life moves on, both women find themselves turning to the voice of Frankie Bard, American radio gal in Europe with Edward R Murrow and others, reporting from England as German bombs fall. Frankie, like the United States, is trying to remain separate from the approaching madness. The very separate lives of these three women begin to draw closer and gradually intertwine. One finds herself committing an act she never thought possible. Another is eyewitness to horrors she could have never imagined. The third waits for love to return. These three are drawn into the ever growing madness of war and all pay a price. Each must draw on personal strength and strength she has unknowingly gained from the others.

Large truths are often told through small stories and ThePostmistress does this with incredible grace and lyricism.       

CAS