The Blood of Lorraine
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- $20.99
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
In the wake of the Dreyfus Affair, the murder of two Jews in Nancy reveals the darker side of human nature.
In the wake of the Vernet murders in Aix-en-Provence, magistrate Bernard Martin moves to the town of Nancy in Lorraine, France, along with his pregnant wife Clarie, who is as fervent about Republican ideals as her husband. They are not in Nancy long when an infant boy is found dead, his tiny body mutilated. The wet nurse and mother say that this was a case of “ritual sacrifice” by a “wandering tinker,” or Jew.
Yet as Bernard delves deeper into the different personalities surrounding the case, he struggles to reconcile his Republican beliefs with the subtle nuances of Nancy’s Jewish Diaspora, all while balancing the racial tensions and politics within the courthouse. Meanwhile his beloved Clarie, now reeling from the death of her own child, seems to be falling prey to the propaganda being spewed throughout town, forcing Bernard to acknowledge the frailties of the human psyche. Fearing a vigilante mob sparked by the church, Bernard must unveil the murderers before Nancy experiences her own pogrom.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pope improves on her 2008 debut, C zanne's Quarry, which also featured magistrate Bernard Martin, in this fascinating look at the rise of anti-Semitism in France after the arrest of Capt. Alfred Dreyfus for treason in 1894. Now transferred to Nancy, the capital of Alsace, Martin doesn't relish investigating a politically sensitive case the murder of seven-month-old Marc-Antoine Thomas, whose parents claim that a Jew killed and mutilated their son that Martin's Jewish colleague, David Singer, insists that Martin take over. When a prominent member of the Jewish community, Victor Ullmann, is later bludgeoned to death, the magistrate fears that it was a revenge killing. Martin must also deal with a devastating personal tragedy as pressure to solve the Ullmann case mounts. Pope, a historian, more than compensates for a not fully satisfying ending with a complex lead and the skill with which she makes the anti-Semitic atmosphere of the times both palpable and tragically prophetic.
