The Collaborators
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4.2 • 5 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Set in Nazi-occupied France, this World War II novel of intrigue by the author of the Dalziel and Pascoe mysteries “call[s] to mind John le Carré” (Publishers Weekly).
Best known for his gritty Dalziel and Pascoe novels, which were adapted into a hit BBC series, Reginald Hill proves to be “the finest male English contemporary crime writer” of stand-alone novels—now available as ebooks (Val McDermid).
Paris, 1945. Günter Mai is a compassionate lieutenant with German intelligence, tasked with combing the city for collaborators. He understands the motives for their betrayal of country: greed, desperation, and fear. Janine Simonian is the wife of a Jewish member of the Resistance, virulently anti-Nazi and, at first, a most unlikely recruit for supplying information to the Abwehr. Until the Gestapo’s reign of terror escalates and Janine’s children are carted off to a pogrom. With Auschwitz only a heartbeat away, Janine strikes a bargain with Mai—one that will have irreversible consequences for the husband she betrays, for Mai, and for Janine herself.
Within the context of a gripping historical thriller, Reginald Hill delivers “a moving, richly textured account of an inhuman military occupation and the all-too-human loyalties it spawns” (Kirkus Reviews).
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.
Customer Reviews
Obviously written before he mastered the art of writing
One can see the potential that enabled his future success, but taken on its own this was a disappointing read