Published alongside the author's second novel HOUSE OF THIEVES, an equally accomplished thriller set in New York at the turn of the 20th century, this polished debut and a bestseller in the USA brings to sinister life Paris under the Nazi occupation. Lucien Bernard, an architect as is the author, is offered a substantial amount of money to devise and construct hiding places for Jews to evade the Germans. The challenge and the financial reward are a strong incentive for him take on the task and risk everything, but it soon turns into something more complex and personal while all along his relationship with the Nazis grows closer, as they not only highly admire his work but his own mistress, a fashion designer, is having an affair with an occupying officer. Morally ambiguous, fascinating in the details of architectural work and a moody evocation of a troubled period, a thriller with a heart. ~ Maxim Jakubowski
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! An extraordinary book about a gifted architect who reluctantly begins a secret life of resistance, devising ingenious hiding places for Jews in World War II Paris. In 1942 Paris, architect Lucien Bernard accepts a commission that will bring him a great deal of money - and maybe get him killed. All he has to do is design a secret hiding place for a Jewish man, a space so invisible that even the most determined German officer won't find it while World War II rages on. He sorely needs the money, and outwitting the Nazis who have occupied his beloved city is a challenge he can't resist. Soon Lucien is hiding more souls and saving lives. But when one of his hideouts fails horribly, and the problem of where to conceal a Jew becomes much more personal, and he can no longer ignore what's at stake. "A beautiful and elegant account of an ordinary man's unexpected and reluctant descent into heroism during the second world war." -Malcolm Gladwell Book clubs will pore over the questions Charles Belfoure raises about justice, resistance, and just how far we'll go to make things right. Also by Charles Belfoure: The Fallen Architect House of Thieves
Charles Belfoure is an author and architect who lives in Westminster MD. A graduate of the Pratt Institute and Columbia University, his practice is in historic preservation working as both an architect and historic preservation consultant with a specialty in historic tax credit consulting. He has written architectural histories including being the co-author of The Baltimore Rowhouse and Niernsee & Neilson, Architects of Baltimore, the author of Monuments to Money: The Architecture of American Banks, and Edmund Lind, Anglo-American Architect of Baltimore and the South. He was the recipient of a grant from the James Marston Fitch Charitable Foundation and the Graham Foundation. His books have won awards from the Maryland Historical Trust. The Paris Architect is his first novel.
