Puttin on the Ritz

The legendary Hotel Ritz Paris is a central character in its own right in this flawed lovers love story in which young American artist, Paul Stainer, is trapped in World War Two occupied Paris. Banished to Europe in 1940 by a wealthy Chicago family because of his gay hedonist lifestyle, nineteen-year-old uncommonly handsome and sexy Paul is in Paris not only to further his art development but also to notch the bedpost with as many of the continent’s artistic and literary giants as he can. Caught penniless by the German occupation of Paris, he turns to his most lucrative skill—gay sex for money. In the process, he finds himself in the Hotel Ritz Paris and the bed of German SS Gestapo captain Garren von Kaube.

Slowly, surely, as Germany’s prospects for victory are going downhill, the two flawed characters fall in love. Garren wishes Paul to retreat to Berlin with him, but Paul fears doing so as Garren does not know Paul is an American, which would endanger them both. As the noose tightens around the German occupation, sometimes Ritz Paris resident Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring discovers the charms of Paul and both the pressure to aid the Resistance and the threat of being condemned as a collaborator fall ever more heavily on Paul’s head.

Review quotes:

“That is an absolutely well plotted & erotic story with first-rate dialogue appropriate for the story & times.”