The Collaborators
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4.5 • 6 Ratings
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- £4.49
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- £4.49
Publisher Description
From the bestselling author of the Dalziel and Pascoe series, a superb novel of wartime passion, loyalty – and betrayal
Paris, 1945. In the aftermath of the French liberation, Janine Simonian stands accused of passing secret information to the Nazis.
She is dragged from her cell before jeering crowds, to face a jury of former Resistance members who are out for her blood. Standing bravely in court, Janine pleads guilty to all charges.
Why did Janine betray, not just her country, but her own husband? Why did so many French men and women collaborate with the Nazis, while others gave their lives in resistance?
What follows is a story of conscience and sacrifice that portrays the impossible choice between personal and national loyalty during the Nazi occupation.
Reviews
Praise for ‘The Collaborators’:
‘A gripping and atmospheric period thriller.’ Daily Mail
‘Hill probes the human heart and the way it shifts with the changing demands and temptations of the Occupation in this subtle, complex and powerful novel whose issues are all too present today.” Oxford Times
‘One of the most consistently excellent crime novelists’ Times
‘Few writers in the genre today have Hill’s gifts: formidable intelligence, quick humour, compassion and a prose style that blends elegance and grace’ Donna Leon, Sunday Times
‘The fertility of Hill’s imagination, the range of his power, the sheer quality of his literary style never cease to delight’ Val McDermid, Sunday Express
‘Probably the best living male crime writer in the English-speaking world’ Andrew Taylor, Independent
‘Reginald Hill’s novels are really dances to the music of time, his heroes and villains interconnecting, their stories entwining’ Ian Rankin, Scotland on Sunday
‘Reginald Hill is on of the finest crime writers ever’ Sunday Telegraph
About the author
Reginald Hill was brought up in Cumbria, and has returned there after many years in Yorkshire. With his first crime novel, A Clubbable Woman, he was hailed as ‘the crime novel’s best hope’ and twenty years on he has more than fulfilled that prophecy.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
First published in England in 1987, this novel departs from Hill's usual mystery oeuvre ( Ruling Passion ). With thoughtfulness and insight that call to mind le Carre, Hill reconsiders an aspect of the German occupation of France during WW II that many Frenchmen would prefer to forget--the collaboration. Set primarily in Paris, the novel follows the lives of Jean-Paul and Janine Simonian, he a Jew, she a boulanger 's daughter married against her parents' wishes. Upon his release from a military hospital after France's humiliating defeat in 1940, Jean-Paul joins the Resistance. For her part, Janine worries--about her two children and the husband who has become emotionally so dark and distant. Gunther Mai, an otherwise kindly German officer in the Abwehr , befriends Janine and uses her as a source of information on her husband's activities--a relationship that works well until he falls in love with her. What Hill portrays so successfully is the conflict between social and personal responsibility. Through a wonderful range of secondary characters, he skillfully characterizes the collaborator in his various guises--from the self-serving black marketeer to the loving mother and wife. Best of all, Hill captures the collapse of morality in occupied France.
