The Paris Architect (2013)
By Charles Belfoure
This novel is reminiscent of Anne Frank's diary of her family's years in hiding in Amsterdam and of Corrie Ten Boom's memoir of her family's efforts to keep their Jewish neighbors safe. In 1942 Lucien Bernard is a French architect who is just trying to keep under the Gestapo radar in occupied Paris. Hardly a member of the resistance, he is more interested in maintaining a playboy lifestyle than saving Jews. But work is scarce, and he is intrigued by an offer to design a hiding place for a wealthy Jew. Knowing that any effort to help Jews could cost him his life, Lucien is persuaded only when the offer is accompanied by a much more lucrative offer to design a munitions plant outside Paris for the Germans, a move that could label him as a collaborator.
Lucien thrives in his double life, enjoying a growing friendship with Captain Herzog, the urbane German counterpart of his French employer, but getting more commissions to hide Jewish leaders. At each location, Lucien surveys each room, finally deciding on the least obvious location for a hiding place. At one point, he is asked to take in Pierre, a 12-year-old Jewish orphan. Against his better judgment, Lucien acquiesces and his life is changed as he becomes a devoted father to Pierre. Eventually, however, an architectural intern begins to suspect Lucien, and his position becomes ever more dangerous.
This book is not for the fainthearted, featuring some terrifying scenes. But it was a page-turner, and I was not surprised to learn that the author is an architect by profession, and has published a number of other architect thrillers, as well as architectural histories.
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