Anca Segall

Paris Requiem, set in 1940, successfully weaves the dark tapestry of Nazi-occupied France, particularly Paris, through characters that are gritty, realistic, and frequently hopeless. Many are venal, ready to take advantage of those weaker than themselves. Some cling to their humanity with all they can muster. Others are stuck between a rock and a hard place, and find that doing any good deed is risky not only to themselves but to their loved ones. Eddie Giral, the detective at the center of the novel, is fully realized, fallible and self-aware and sometimes very vulnerable.

Chris Lloyd has done his research. Occasionally his writing can get a bit bogged down, but there were plenty of surprising turns and twists to pull me along, together with the atmosphere and characters. I enjoyed this book enough to look forward to reading the other two in the series (I started with the second by accident; the third is due out soon).

This book opened my mind to and challenged “old saws” that I hadn't even realized were myths—the Ellis Island renaming was foremost here. Another deep dive and retake was Horn's treatment of the place Anne Frank's Diary holds in literature, and of more recent books about the Holocaust in general—there's a coyness to the way some of these books treat the issue, almost a romanticized view that turns away from the blood and guts and real human tragedy of it. This is extended into her analysis of various shooting incidents, and the difference in how they are treated by the media when they affect Jewish communities versus non-Jewish ones—as if the media is “mansplaining” the horror of the violence and smearing the victims with justifications that are irrelevant and worse.

I happened to read Dara Horn's book just after finishing a fictionalized account that based on Varian Fry's efforts to smuggle artists out of Nazi-occupied and Vichy France: The Postmistress of Paris, by Meg Waite Clayton. That book led me to a blog about Varian Fry, and to Ms. Clayton's credit, she hewed closely to the historical facts. What Dara Horn opened my eyes to, in addition to adding more detail about specific artists rescued by Fry and his group, was frankly deeply embarrassing and nearly incomprehensible: when Fry, after returning home, reached out to some of his famous “rescuees” to ask for their support in the form of their voices and to a lesser extent their financial help for continuing the effort to help refugees, he was ignored. How inexcusable!

Unlike Ms. Horn, I am 100% Jewish by birth, tradition, and culture, but not by religion. I was raised atheist in Romania, by atheist parents who believed (at the time) that atheism and the socialist dream would save their Jewish community. They were wrong, but I haven't seen any reason since then to revoke my atheism. I still hold religion as more of a problem than a solution, though fully support, in all wa, everyone's right to their own religious beliefs. However, although I don't resonate with Dara Horn's religious echoes, I feel pulled in by the threads she makes to Judaic culture and traditions, and feel less disconnected from them than she might think (or I suspect, give me credit for). I feel indebted to her and this book, and appreciate so many lessons in it. We are still not part of the greater community around us, and we forget or ignore that at our own peril.

Hmmm... i let this one sit for about a week after reading it. Murder mysteries is one of my favorites, but I would not recommend this one. It was a recommendation by a barista in a Barnes&Noble Starbucks, who said she loved it. It followed all the prescriptions of the genre, but was long on plot and short on depth and interest.
[Interrupt for a general announcement: this is the third time I type this review because I lost the first two. WTF, Goodreads?]
1) Protagonist detective is likable enough.
2) Other characters were fine but almost none was truly three-dimensional or had lives of their own, other than in the service of the plot.
3) Props to the author for strong women, a character trait sketched very superficially, and which made the lack of depth even more annoying.
4) The writing was smooth enough, to the point where I'm wondering if it was authored by a human or a Google DeepMind AI?
5) Most annoying was that each French phrase, clearly added for atmosphere, was translated into English, which was nearly obnoxious and interrupted the train of reading. If you're going to use French but not trust your readers to figure it out (most of these were no more than 5-word easy, obvious phrases), then don't bother.
So... no P.D. James here, nor even Agatha Christie or any of the other grand dames of crime.
I finished it because—inertia—and give it a solid meh.

In a sort of postscript, Nick Cornwell, le Carre's (David Cornwell's) son writes that his father had made him promise to finish any novel le Carre may have left unfinished. On le Carre's recent death, the son was puzzled that his father had left unpublished a manuscript that was essentially finished, barring minor editing, and which had been written several years prior.

Darwin8u calls this a novella, and at roughly 44-45K words, maybe that's the best description for it. I finished it in a few days while traveling, and as much as I liked it, I wished several of the characters and events of the back story had been much more fleshed out.

The language was fluid and fleet, but the lyricism and depth of his earlier books, like Smiley's People, was lacking. It was beautifully polished but I can't help but think that had he lived, le Carre would have added several layers of complexity, and made this a fuller treat. It is a good and drinkable wine, but not as complex as we have become accustomed to.

I am grateful for this last gift from this magical author whom I frankly adore. He set such a high bar for himself that I grieve that there will no longer be new le Carre books. Luckily, rereading his books is providing as intense a pleasure as reading them the first time around, and so his work will continue to keep me company.

You shall be sorely missed, Mr. Cornwell.

I liked this book and its premise of weaving fascism and “bad” vampires with an adventure set, for much of the story, in Prague - a city I love and know well, and whose beauty and sad notes resonate with me. The book had some editing issues, but I very much enjoy Mabeuse's writing.