The
Unwanted Dead, by Chris Lloyd (Book One)
Paris
Requiem, by Chris Lloyd (Book Two)
I have just read these books back-to-back and, amazingly, in the right
sequence: I am very proud of
myself! And happy to report that Crime
Writer Chris Lloyd has produced a new, different burnt-out Detective. Different because the First World War was the
reason for his burn-out and, instead of returning to the French city of
Perpignan to manage and inherit his parents’ book shop, Eddie Giral feels more
of use battling – and sometimes winning – against ordinary criminals instead of
the monstrous warmongers who ordered young men to legally murder each other.
It is June, 1940, and the German Occupation has begun.
Paris, the City of Light, is swathed in smoke and ashes and the only mobile
traffic belongs to the German troops;
they are also the only patrons of the many Jazz clubs of Paris, and the
local criminals are rubbing grubby hands together at the thought of relieving
these young boys of their francs and anything else they can get: times are hard – we’re all in this together,
mates! And Eddie agrees – up to a point,
which is tested when he is called to the main railway yard to investigate the
discovery of four bodies in a wagon who have been suffocated to death by the
very nerve gas that killed so many of his friends: who would do such a thing and why, especially
as it is revealed that the men were Polish refugees hoping to flee the city
before the Germans marched in. They paid
someone money to help them escape,
but who? And the more Eddie digs, the
more is revealed about crimes of mass murder in Poland of innocent villagers
buried in mass graves. Who is going to
bring this horror to the world’s attention, hopefully bringing the USA into the
World fray, not to mention rumours of Jewish persecution beginning to surface?
Paris Requiem starts a few months later; the great city is full of thin grey ghosts,
for rationing and coupons have started and no-one is getting enough to eat –
except the German Occupiers. Needless to
say, they don’t have to queue for hours for a piece of bacon rind or a
baguette, nor do they have to eke out for days whatever they were lucky enough
to purchase. Eddie is particularly irked
by the delicious food left lying in his presence by his current nemesis, Major Hochstetter
of the Abwehr, German Intelligence.
Major Hochstetter is particularly intrigued – as is Eddie – by the fact
that a murder victim found in a closed nightclub was serving a two-year jail
sentence: Eddie remembers the case well,
for he put him there! Now he has to
investigate his particularly grisly end.
As a writer, Chris Lloyd is a bit rough around the
edges; he uses contemporary expressions
which are out of keeping with the time, but he has created a very fine hero in
Eddie, one who is weighed down by all the sorrow of what might have been, the
estrangement from his family, the terrible randomness of one’s fate, but still he battles on with a suicidal fearlessness to right wrongs as he sees them,
Hochstetter be damned! FIVE STARS.
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