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
In 1942 Paris, gifted architect Lucien Bernard accepts a commission that will bring him a great deal of money - and maybe get him killed. But if he's clever enough, he'll avoid any trouble. All he has to do is design a secret hiding place for a wealthy Jewish man, a space so invisible that even the most determined German officer won't find it. He sorely needs the money, and outwitting the Nazis who have occupied his beloved city is a challenge he can't resist. But when one of his hiding spaces fails horribly, and the problem of where to hide a Jew becomes terribly personal, Lucien can no longer ignore what's at stake. The Paris Architect asks us to consider what we owe each other, and just how far we'll go to make things right. Written by an architect whose knowledge imbues every page, this story becomes more gripping with every soul hidden and every life saved.
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.
