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Louis Morgon #4
The Resistance: A Thriller
"Literate crime thrillers don't get much better than this." —Publishers Weekly (starred) on L'AssassinPeter Steiner has thoroughly impressed sophisticated thriller mavens everywhere with his critically acclaimed novels featuring ex-CIA operative Louis Morgon. Now, in what is indubitably Steiner's finest book to date, Louis attempts to solve a mystery with roots going back as far as World War II. When Louis purchases a rundown house in Saint-Leon-sur-Dême, he quickly goes to work fixing it up. However, during the renovations, he discovers evidence of a long forgotten crime hidden beneath the floorboards. Unable to leave a good mystery unsolved, he enlists the help of his friend Renard, a French cop, and sets out to discover exactly what happened in this small French village during the Nazi occupation. As Louis and Renard search for the answer to a decades-old question, they encounter an unforgettable cast of characters, including Simon, a Jew from Berlin who leads a French resistance cell, a Nazi colonel who is not at all what he seems, and Marie Piano, whose bravery is unmatched. Soon, Louis is pulled into the secrets and lies of the past as he begins to call into question the very nature of guilt and innocence in times of war. Compelling, arresting, and complex, The Resistance is a thriller that will appeal to fans of John le Carre and Graham Greene.
319 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2012
37 people are currently reading
242 people want to read
About the author
Peter Steiner
11 books39 followersPETER STEINER is the author of five books in the Louis Morgon series, A French Country Murder (Le Crime), L'Assassin, The Terrorist, The Resistance, and The Capitalist.
A new novel The Good Cop will come out September 1, 2019. This book takes place in Weimar Germany in the 1920's and early thirties.
A New Yorker cartoonist, Steiner lives in Connecticut and spends part of each year in France, in a village not unlike the one featured in the Morgon novels. You can see more at plsteiner.com. and see his most recent cartoons exclusively at plsteiner.com/blog.
A new novel The Good Cop will come out September 1, 2019. This book takes place in Weimar Germany in the 1920's and early thirties.
A New Yorker cartoonist, Steiner lives in Connecticut and spends part of each year in France, in a village not unlike the one featured in the Morgon novels. You can see more at plsteiner.com. and see his most recent cartoons exclusively at plsteiner.com/blog.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
November 13, 2024
Francophile and ex-U.S. spy Louis Morgon is mysteriously absent through much of this historical thriller, which focuses on events in Nazi-occupied France in World War II. Much of the novel is centered on the father of Morgon's police ally, Renard, who was charged with keeping peace in the town prior to his son's succession as police chief. The novel raises moral questions about war crimes, patriotism and survival when an occupied army controls your country. As in his other novels, good character development too. 3.5 stars.
October 11, 2025
Here is a terrific story full of human drama and intrigue. For anyone still gobbling up stories set during WWll, this is a great one that is part of a mystery and humanity. When France was occupied by the Nazis,life went on in a semblance of normalcy in a tiny country villiage.Below the surface many conflicting parties resisted the iron clasp of Hitler in various ways often interfering with each other .Caught in the middle,trying to avoid notice,trying to survive were the people who simply loved their old French freedoms. A generation later, a son looks back to the awful wartime occupation hopeful to make peace with the actions taken by his father in that time. Also,there is a mystery to clear up and retribution to set in motion.
December 12, 2012
It occurs to me that the title itself suggests a scope impossible to deliver well. Still, I was hooked enough to submit this novel to the first chapter test. Steiner's voice and pace--the literary side of thriller--sailed it easily through.
Ex-everything Louis Morgon (State Department bureaucrat/CIA operative/husband/citizen) discovers hidden in his French farmhouse a Resistance newsletter from WW2. The names and events point to an unsolved mystery involving the Maquis (Resistance) and the French militia from the area where Morgon now lives. The central figure of the mystery is the village's militia officer Yves, now deceased, whose son now is the town's gendarme. Was Yves a collaborator? To find out Louis must confront long-hidden secrets.
Steiner makes effective use of extended flashback to weave the tale. No matter that this is a series novel; this story stands well on its own. What I loved about this story was it's complexity. In solving the mystery at hand the author also confronts the question faced by every French citizen during that time: do I resist or collaborate and what, in reality, is the difference?
The answer is not a simple as first thought. As a result, this thriller achieves a level of satisfaction seldom found for it's genre. And for me, it certainly lives up to it's title.
January 7, 2019
'The Resistance' is a beautifully written piece of historical fiction by Peter Steiner that fills in a bit of the backstory on the eponymous character in his Louis Morgon series. Although I'm a sucker for literate spy novels but not a fan of historical fiction, The Resistance managed to hold my interest and then some.
It begins as Morgon's world is crashing around him. He loses his job at the CIA, loses his family, and loses interest in getting things back to normal. He decides to take a walk, around a country no less (France), and on a whim selects a small town in which to settle. He buys a ramshackle old house, begins renovations, befriends a few locals, and makes a discovery in the detritus of his property that shakes up the town.
Roughly 90% of The Resistance is a flashback to the time when the town was occupied by the Germans in WW2. The father of Morgon's friend Renaud, currently the gendarme in town, was the lone policeman in the village. He had to work alongside the Nazi occupiers and found himself walking a fine line between collaboration and resistance. The Resistance is the story of how the denizens of the town walked that same line, how it led to a shocking massacre, and how the modern tandem of Morgon and Renaud searched for the truth about Renaud's father and finally identified who was responsible for the murders.
I really enjoy Steiner's writing. It's perfectly suited to the context of the action and the pacing is excellent. I particularly enjoy the dialogue between Morgon and the various locals he encounters. It definitely has the feel of an American ex-pat communicating with French folk who have a very sort of courtly approach to language. In general, if you enjoy Alan Furst's work The Resistance will be in your sweet spot.
It begins as Morgon's world is crashing around him. He loses his job at the CIA, loses his family, and loses interest in getting things back to normal. He decides to take a walk, around a country no less (France), and on a whim selects a small town in which to settle. He buys a ramshackle old house, begins renovations, befriends a few locals, and makes a discovery in the detritus of his property that shakes up the town.
Roughly 90% of The Resistance is a flashback to the time when the town was occupied by the Germans in WW2. The father of Morgon's friend Renaud, currently the gendarme in town, was the lone policeman in the village. He had to work alongside the Nazi occupiers and found himself walking a fine line between collaboration and resistance. The Resistance is the story of how the denizens of the town walked that same line, how it led to a shocking massacre, and how the modern tandem of Morgon and Renaud searched for the truth about Renaud's father and finally identified who was responsible for the murders.
I really enjoy Steiner's writing. It's perfectly suited to the context of the action and the pacing is excellent. I particularly enjoy the dialogue between Morgon and the various locals he encounters. It definitely has the feel of an American ex-pat communicating with French folk who have a very sort of courtly approach to language. In general, if you enjoy Alan Furst's work The Resistance will be in your sweet spot.
July 9, 2019
Nothing short of brilliant. If you like your spy novels set in a morally ambiguous world, and you like smart (but in no sense inaccessible) writing, this is a book for you.
While it's a novel in a series, the lead character of the series is only peripheral to the story, and you can read this without reading the others. The main part of the novel is set in the 1940s, in occupied France. There are resistors and collaborators, and sometimes it's hard to tell who is which.
What Steiner does so well is to embrace the complexities of life. I hunted for a quote I wanted to add here, but could not find it, so I'll have to use my own clumsy prose to summarize. The sense of it was, when law and order no longer exists, all that is left for people to decide what to do is their own conscience. But that's a tricky thing, perverted as conscience is by lust and anger and pride and all sorts of other human failings.
Brutal things happen. Sad things happen. Joy and love and friendship and bravery happen.
Try the book, really. Do.
While it's a novel in a series, the lead character of the series is only peripheral to the story, and you can read this without reading the others. The main part of the novel is set in the 1940s, in occupied France. There are resistors and collaborators, and sometimes it's hard to tell who is which.
What Steiner does so well is to embrace the complexities of life. I hunted for a quote I wanted to add here, but could not find it, so I'll have to use my own clumsy prose to summarize. The sense of it was, when law and order no longer exists, all that is left for people to decide what to do is their own conscience. But that's a tricky thing, perverted as conscience is by lust and anger and pride and all sorts of other human failings.
Brutal things happen. Sad things happen. Joy and love and friendship and bravery happen.
Try the book, really. Do.
May 21, 2013
After losing his job at the CIA and his wife moved out and took his children and Louis Morgan decided to go away and walk across France. He liked the town of Saint-Léon-sur-Dême and bought a dilapidated home. While repairing it, he finds an interesting but unreadable mimeographed paper, resembling a pamphlet, and guns hidden under the floor.
Louis decides to learn the story behind the items and working with a local policeman, Jean Renard, and, as a long flashback, learns about the French Resistance movement during World War II when France was occupied by Germany and the Vichy government, cooperating with the Nazis, ruled. He later tries to interview some of the people who were actually involved or knew people who were.
The pamphlet, posted and distributed widely, tells the story of what has happened and encourages resistance. The Nazis try very hard to find and punish the publisher but with only one police officer, newly on the job and 21 years old, they are unsuccessful. Issue 16, published February 1943, states, "We are living under a murderous regime governed by treachery and deceit. Our own government has made it shameful to call oneself French." It asserts "The persecution and deportation of Jews" and notes, "Our civil servants and police not only aided in this cruel business, but in many cases they initiated it." It also warned that the Germans would turn on French accomplices and collaborators.
Some of my favorite observations by Peter Steiner are;
"When such a sudden and enormous upheaval occurs, as there has been in France, it can only result in chaos. Once order is obliterated and the law itself becomes lawless, all anyone has left is his own moral compass. And the personal moral compass is an extremely unreliable instrument. Convenience, opportunism, greed, malice–all these things and more exert a stronger magnetic force than virtue ever could."
"Once it became a reality, it was the only reality It was normal, everyday, even when it was horrible."
"These days we all have to do things no one should have to do....It’s these times we should be ashamed of. Not what we have to do to make them better."
"But like citizens of small towns everywhere, they were hungry for news–good or bad–about their neighbors, about France, about the war. Gossip is the currency of all small towns; malicious or harmless, it makes no difference. It all has the same high value. It fuels the social fires, the alliances and rivalries. It fires people’s passions and imaginations. And that is precisely what makes news so dangerous. Or gossip, for they come down to one and the same thing."
"It was what passed for thinking, but it was never even close. In that world, in that sort of thinking, you never started at the beginning, with wonderment and confusion, which are the prerequisites for all real thinking. You never abandoned your preconceptions so that you could see what was actually coming your way.
"On the contrary, you only used what came your way to buttress your standing, to seal leaks in your reasoning, to build a stronger, even more impenetrable, unassailable fortress of conviction. The goal was always something that only resembled knowledge and understanding but was noting more than chewed-over and rearranged predispositions. A position.. That was what you wanted. To have a position."
After the war inn which 60 million people died: "As time passed, mankind left the war behind, faster than anyone could ever have imagined we could, faster probably than was good for us. Proper healing didn’t matter. What everyone wanted more than anything else was to forget. Start over. Move on."
"I don’t have a version of history. All I have is a mountain of contradictory facts. Facts that aren’t facts, and facts that are facts. All mixed together.
"That’s history."
I’m giving THE RESISTANCE four stars because it is a somewhat fresh read on a familiar story and his analysis, quoted above, make it relevant today.
Louis decides to learn the story behind the items and working with a local policeman, Jean Renard, and, as a long flashback, learns about the French Resistance movement during World War II when France was occupied by Germany and the Vichy government, cooperating with the Nazis, ruled. He later tries to interview some of the people who were actually involved or knew people who were.
The pamphlet, posted and distributed widely, tells the story of what has happened and encourages resistance. The Nazis try very hard to find and punish the publisher but with only one police officer, newly on the job and 21 years old, they are unsuccessful. Issue 16, published February 1943, states, "We are living under a murderous regime governed by treachery and deceit. Our own government has made it shameful to call oneself French." It asserts "The persecution and deportation of Jews" and notes, "Our civil servants and police not only aided in this cruel business, but in many cases they initiated it." It also warned that the Germans would turn on French accomplices and collaborators.
Some of my favorite observations by Peter Steiner are;
"When such a sudden and enormous upheaval occurs, as there has been in France, it can only result in chaos. Once order is obliterated and the law itself becomes lawless, all anyone has left is his own moral compass. And the personal moral compass is an extremely unreliable instrument. Convenience, opportunism, greed, malice–all these things and more exert a stronger magnetic force than virtue ever could."
"Once it became a reality, it was the only reality It was normal, everyday, even when it was horrible."
"These days we all have to do things no one should have to do....It’s these times we should be ashamed of. Not what we have to do to make them better."
"But like citizens of small towns everywhere, they were hungry for news–good or bad–about their neighbors, about France, about the war. Gossip is the currency of all small towns; malicious or harmless, it makes no difference. It all has the same high value. It fuels the social fires, the alliances and rivalries. It fires people’s passions and imaginations. And that is precisely what makes news so dangerous. Or gossip, for they come down to one and the same thing."
"It was what passed for thinking, but it was never even close. In that world, in that sort of thinking, you never started at the beginning, with wonderment and confusion, which are the prerequisites for all real thinking. You never abandoned your preconceptions so that you could see what was actually coming your way.
"On the contrary, you only used what came your way to buttress your standing, to seal leaks in your reasoning, to build a stronger, even more impenetrable, unassailable fortress of conviction. The goal was always something that only resembled knowledge and understanding but was noting more than chewed-over and rearranged predispositions. A position.. That was what you wanted. To have a position."
After the war inn which 60 million people died: "As time passed, mankind left the war behind, faster than anyone could ever have imagined we could, faster probably than was good for us. Proper healing didn’t matter. What everyone wanted more than anything else was to forget. Start over. Move on."
"I don’t have a version of history. All I have is a mountain of contradictory facts. Facts that aren’t facts, and facts that are facts. All mixed together.
"That’s history."
I’m giving THE RESISTANCE four stars because it is a somewhat fresh read on a familiar story and his analysis, quoted above, make it relevant today.
January 23, 2023
A compelling and emotive story of the occupation and resistance in a French county village in WWII. Louis Morgon, the central character in the first three of this series, plays only a peripheral role in this, but is still essential in the events of 45 years before. This is stirringly beautiful writing by a master story-teller.
June 7, 2018
A good beach read. A mystery thriller that takes place during the occupation of France during WWII. I was sometimes very confused but that was probably intentional on the author’s part because living in occupied France was a morally and logically confusing time which the author often brutally explores. Having lived in the region of France during college where the story took place made the story especially relevant for me.
October 13, 2024
A thrilling novel of the French resisting Nazi authority. The French resistance in a small village is taking chances to outwit and destroy the Nazi takeover. American Peter Steiner needs a new beginning from his career in espionage. He goes to France to a small village where clues are everywhere, but well hidden and waiting to be found. Who were the collaborators? Who were part of the resistance? I couldn't stop reading this exciting novel.
June 29, 2021
A superb nove!l
Steiner has gone far beyond the thriller genre, and written a judicious and nuanced study of an agonizingly complicated period in our not so distant past, evoking the terrible choices that ordinary people were forced to make, and the tragic consequences that followed.
Steiner has gone far beyond the thriller genre, and written a judicious and nuanced study of an agonizingly complicated period in our not so distant past, evoking the terrible choices that ordinary people were forced to make, and the tragic consequences that followed.
August 30, 2021
Peter Steiner is definitely a notch above most of the other writers of this genre. I have an affinity for the setting in France of the Louis Morgon series...it never disappoints. I only have one left to read after discovering Mr. Steiner's work and already miss the characters and intrigue in these finely written books.
October 22, 2025
Couldn’t make it through 4 chapters.
The writing style drove me nuts.
“He did this”. “He did That”. “He went here”. “He went there”.
It seemed, at times, like I was reading a Dr. Seuss children’s book.
Not a thriller.
The book’s jacket said it would appeal to LeCarré fans. I completely disagree. I’ve read many LeCarré stories and they are much superior.
The writing style drove me nuts.
“He did this”. “He did That”. “He went here”. “He went there”.
It seemed, at times, like I was reading a Dr. Seuss children’s book.
Not a thriller.
The book’s jacket said it would appeal to LeCarré fans. I completely disagree. I’ve read many LeCarré stories and they are much superior.
November 12, 2019
This was my first book from Peter Steiner. I really enjoyed reading this book. I was a bit confused when the author took us back in time for most of the book, but it was necessary to understand the end of the story. Very well done. I am looking forward to read additional writing from this author.
June 26, 2021
Great read!
Reaching back to WW2, the story successfully captures the very real tensions within the French people. Steiner is a master of creating very real people in personal struggles.
Reaching back to WW2, the story successfully captures the very real tensions within the French people. Steiner is a master of creating very real people in personal struggles.
January 25, 2023
Newcomer to small French village years after the war, Louis Morgan, solves a “resistance” mystery. While it starts rather simply, the story shows the moral issues of trying to survive during the occupation: do you collaborate? resist? And how? A better read than I expected.
January 27, 2018
Intriguing book, set in the present day but exploring crimes that occurred when a small French village was occupied by the Germans .
October 15, 2019
One of the 12 best mysteries I read in 2012.
August 30, 2021
Another fantastic Louis Morgon thriller by Peter Steiner.
July 26, 2014
The Resistance: A morality tale wrapped in a fine thriller
I CAN'T IMMEDIATELY THINK of a better premise for a novel than the one Peter Steiner found: “I invented two young men and put them in dire circumstances.” He made them members of the French Resistance.
“Dire” hardly covers it. Think about it: One of the brothers, Onesime Josquin, is a rifleman standing fruitless duty on the Maginot Line as the Germans sweep around it, destroying the French army in the process. He leaves his post and walks home to the small Loire village of Saint-Léon-sur-Dême, to his mother Anne Marie and his brother Jean. Soon Germans are building a logistics depot in the caves where wine has been stored for generations. The village is occupied.
Onesime and Jean start as small-time résistants. As they go about their daily routine — Onesime as farmhand for the local noble, Jean in a bicycle shop — they develop layer upon layer of useful information about their new occupiers. Onesime begins by drawing detailed maps. Jean collects order-of-battle information, although he goes on to other, darker pursuits. Neither has much of an idea what he will do with it until the mysterious Simon comes into their life. Their mother, unknown to them, is doing the same. And so, as we learn only at the end, are others.
Their initial floundering and confusion resolves itself into clear, hard action, but not before there is much loss of life and a great deal of doubt about the morality of what they and their fellow townspeople are doing. But one of the best features of The Resistance is that there is not a lot of agonizing over the morality of resisting openly, resisting surreptitiously, collaborating, or — the point of the book — some mix of all.
For example: The local beauty lost her husband to the Germans in World War I but falls in love with the first commander at Saint-Léon — who meets a bad end at the hands of his own side. She’s clearly a collaborator, isn’t she? The next German officer thinks so, up until the last instant of his life, when she turns into the paramour from hell.
The Resistance is the most recent in Steiner’s delightful Louis Morgon series, stories about an American intelligence operative who, after disgrace and divorce, finds his own redemption through a long walk from Paris more or less along the pilgrim trail to Santiago de Compostela. There he reaches the final decision that his future lies in Saint-Léon, a place he’s spent only one night. The old house he buys hasn’t been lived in since before the war, and under its crumbling floor he finds the package that provides the key to this story. Two keys, actually.
I highly recommend that you also read A French Country Murder for Morgon’s back story. You’ll understand his life and disgrace much better. (It was also published as Le Crime. Both are available on Amazon.)
The Resistance is billed as a thriller, and it has many of the thriller’s traits. Read it for the exciting tale of resistance, bravery, love and death — that’s why I started it. Steiner presented it at the American Library in Paris two years ago and I first read it after I heard and met him. I went back to it recently, and it was on second reading that I fully understood it was more than just a thriller. It’s a philosophical treatise, and it will make you think. How would any of us react under the circumstances Onesime and Jean (and their mother, and the local gendarme, and the mayor, plus many others) found themselves facing?
Jean-Paul Sartre summed it up pithily in his Paris under the Occupation: “The maquisards, our pride, refused to work for the enemy; but it was necessary for the peasants, if they wanted to feed them, to continue to grow beets, half of which went to Germany.”
Peter Steiner lives part of the year in rural France, and his knowledge of the countryside is evident. His next Louis Morgon thriller is scheduled for publication in Spring 2015.
He took to novels later in life, as you’ll see from the interview, after a long career as a cartoonist at The New Yorker and other places. His New Yorker cartoon captioned, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” is the magazine's most-reproduced cartoon. He holds a Ph.D. in German literature.
His Amazon page, bio, and all his books are here. His personal web site, a very pretty one, is PLSteiner.com.
He was the subject of the most recent Part-Time Parisian author interview (PartTimeParisian.com).
—
The Resistance: A Thriller (A Louis Morgon Thriller) [Kindle Edition] 319 pp. Minotaur Books (August 21, 2012) $7.59. Also available in hardcover. It can be purchased on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and this review has been posted on both sites.
I CAN'T IMMEDIATELY THINK of a better premise for a novel than the one Peter Steiner found: “I invented two young men and put them in dire circumstances.” He made them members of the French Resistance.
“Dire” hardly covers it. Think about it: One of the brothers, Onesime Josquin, is a rifleman standing fruitless duty on the Maginot Line as the Germans sweep around it, destroying the French army in the process. He leaves his post and walks home to the small Loire village of Saint-Léon-sur-Dême, to his mother Anne Marie and his brother Jean. Soon Germans are building a logistics depot in the caves where wine has been stored for generations. The village is occupied.
Onesime and Jean start as small-time résistants. As they go about their daily routine — Onesime as farmhand for the local noble, Jean in a bicycle shop — they develop layer upon layer of useful information about their new occupiers. Onesime begins by drawing detailed maps. Jean collects order-of-battle information, although he goes on to other, darker pursuits. Neither has much of an idea what he will do with it until the mysterious Simon comes into their life. Their mother, unknown to them, is doing the same. And so, as we learn only at the end, are others.
Their initial floundering and confusion resolves itself into clear, hard action, but not before there is much loss of life and a great deal of doubt about the morality of what they and their fellow townspeople are doing. But one of the best features of The Resistance is that there is not a lot of agonizing over the morality of resisting openly, resisting surreptitiously, collaborating, or — the point of the book — some mix of all.
For example: The local beauty lost her husband to the Germans in World War I but falls in love with the first commander at Saint-Léon — who meets a bad end at the hands of his own side. She’s clearly a collaborator, isn’t she? The next German officer thinks so, up until the last instant of his life, when she turns into the paramour from hell.
The Resistance is the most recent in Steiner’s delightful Louis Morgon series, stories about an American intelligence operative who, after disgrace and divorce, finds his own redemption through a long walk from Paris more or less along the pilgrim trail to Santiago de Compostela. There he reaches the final decision that his future lies in Saint-Léon, a place he’s spent only one night. The old house he buys hasn’t been lived in since before the war, and under its crumbling floor he finds the package that provides the key to this story. Two keys, actually.
I highly recommend that you also read A French Country Murder for Morgon’s back story. You’ll understand his life and disgrace much better. (It was also published as Le Crime. Both are available on Amazon.)
The Resistance is billed as a thriller, and it has many of the thriller’s traits. Read it for the exciting tale of resistance, bravery, love and death — that’s why I started it. Steiner presented it at the American Library in Paris two years ago and I first read it after I heard and met him. I went back to it recently, and it was on second reading that I fully understood it was more than just a thriller. It’s a philosophical treatise, and it will make you think. How would any of us react under the circumstances Onesime and Jean (and their mother, and the local gendarme, and the mayor, plus many others) found themselves facing?
Jean-Paul Sartre summed it up pithily in his Paris under the Occupation: “The maquisards, our pride, refused to work for the enemy; but it was necessary for the peasants, if they wanted to feed them, to continue to grow beets, half of which went to Germany.”
Peter Steiner lives part of the year in rural France, and his knowledge of the countryside is evident. His next Louis Morgon thriller is scheduled for publication in Spring 2015.
He took to novels later in life, as you’ll see from the interview, after a long career as a cartoonist at The New Yorker and other places. His New Yorker cartoon captioned, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” is the magazine's most-reproduced cartoon. He holds a Ph.D. in German literature.
His Amazon page, bio, and all his books are here. His personal web site, a very pretty one, is PLSteiner.com.
He was the subject of the most recent Part-Time Parisian author interview (PartTimeParisian.com).
—
The Resistance: A Thriller (A Louis Morgon Thriller) [Kindle Edition] 319 pp. Minotaur Books (August 21, 2012) $7.59. Also available in hardcover. It can be purchased on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and this review has been posted on both sites.
July 2, 2012
A received an ARC of this book through a GoodReads giveaway.
I know people who say they won't read a book if it doesn't grab them in the first page or two. If I were one of those people, I wouldn't have made it past page two of this book. The writing is that clunky. But if I had, I would have missed out on the rest of the book, which is very good.
The clunky part begins in the early '70s with CIA agent Louis Morgon losing his job in Washington. The second page seems to defy time by having him go home, tell his wife, having her get mad at his estrangement and move out with the kids, and having some other woman tell him to go to France--all in the space of a couple of hours. Although a second reading makes it obvious this series of events happens over a much longer period of time, it really shouldn't need a second reading. A walking tour of France leads Louis to the town of Saint-Leon-sur-Deme. Eventually he buys a house and discovers an old pamphlet and a gun from the French Resistance, and that's where the story begins to get good.
Louis Morgon completely disappears for the next couple of hundred pages. Instead we return to the village as it was when the Nazis took over. The village was in Vichy, France, the part nominally controlled by the French in goose-step with their Nazi occupiers. This is a story of how ordinary people survive in extraordinary times. Most people try to live their lives as normally as possible. Some think the Nazis are a better alternative to the Communists, who had been trying to gain control of the country before the war. Few care what happens to the few Jews and Gypsies around them. But most people also seem to have a secret life, perhaps even more than one. There is the young policeman, Yves Renard. Was he a collaborator or a member of the resistance? There are two women who both lost husbands to the Germans in the Great War. They will take two very different paths to achieve the same ends in this war. One of the women has two sons, who separately and together keep careful track of the German's movements. There is the local aristocrat who seems to be playing all sides. And there is the German Jew who slips in and out of town like a ghost, masterminding the resistance. And there are the town officials who must deal with their Nazi overseers. Their stories move through and around each other creating a fascinating world for the reader.
There is a wonderful comment from one of the characters toward the end of the book that seems to sum up what such an existance must have been like: "What had been evil was now the law, and what had been good was now punishable by death. It was a time when to obey the law was to do terrible things or at least to be complicit in terrible things. At the same time, to resist often meant doing equally terrible things. All I will say is that I resisted, and I did terrible things."
Throughout the story there are copies of a pamphlet printed by an unknown resistance member. They give the reader a sense of time by mentioning other things going on in the war. They also serve to drive the Nazis and their sympathizers crazy as they repeatedly try to catch the printer. But I had a problem with these in that they seemed to know too much. I doubt that the writer in a small town would have been aware of Hitler's "Final Solution" and a number of other things.
When the story returns to present day, Louis and the son of the policeman set out to discover what really happened in the village. While it creates an interesting end to the story, and solves a mystery the reader will probably have solved much earlier in the book, once again the writing turns clunky. The dialogue reads like a bad translation. In fact, the book reads almost like it was written by two different authors. Despite that, I have to say I am very glad I read the book. It was enough to keep me turning pages right up to the end. I wonder if some of the other problems will be ironed out before final publication.
I know people who say they won't read a book if it doesn't grab them in the first page or two. If I were one of those people, I wouldn't have made it past page two of this book. The writing is that clunky. But if I had, I would have missed out on the rest of the book, which is very good.
The clunky part begins in the early '70s with CIA agent Louis Morgon losing his job in Washington. The second page seems to defy time by having him go home, tell his wife, having her get mad at his estrangement and move out with the kids, and having some other woman tell him to go to France--all in the space of a couple of hours. Although a second reading makes it obvious this series of events happens over a much longer period of time, it really shouldn't need a second reading. A walking tour of France leads Louis to the town of Saint-Leon-sur-Deme. Eventually he buys a house and discovers an old pamphlet and a gun from the French Resistance, and that's where the story begins to get good.
Louis Morgon completely disappears for the next couple of hundred pages. Instead we return to the village as it was when the Nazis took over. The village was in Vichy, France, the part nominally controlled by the French in goose-step with their Nazi occupiers. This is a story of how ordinary people survive in extraordinary times. Most people try to live their lives as normally as possible. Some think the Nazis are a better alternative to the Communists, who had been trying to gain control of the country before the war. Few care what happens to the few Jews and Gypsies around them. But most people also seem to have a secret life, perhaps even more than one. There is the young policeman, Yves Renard. Was he a collaborator or a member of the resistance? There are two women who both lost husbands to the Germans in the Great War. They will take two very different paths to achieve the same ends in this war. One of the women has two sons, who separately and together keep careful track of the German's movements. There is the local aristocrat who seems to be playing all sides. And there is the German Jew who slips in and out of town like a ghost, masterminding the resistance. And there are the town officials who must deal with their Nazi overseers. Their stories move through and around each other creating a fascinating world for the reader.
There is a wonderful comment from one of the characters toward the end of the book that seems to sum up what such an existance must have been like: "What had been evil was now the law, and what had been good was now punishable by death. It was a time when to obey the law was to do terrible things or at least to be complicit in terrible things. At the same time, to resist often meant doing equally terrible things. All I will say is that I resisted, and I did terrible things."
Throughout the story there are copies of a pamphlet printed by an unknown resistance member. They give the reader a sense of time by mentioning other things going on in the war. They also serve to drive the Nazis and their sympathizers crazy as they repeatedly try to catch the printer. But I had a problem with these in that they seemed to know too much. I doubt that the writer in a small town would have been aware of Hitler's "Final Solution" and a number of other things.
When the story returns to present day, Louis and the son of the policeman set out to discover what really happened in the village. While it creates an interesting end to the story, and solves a mystery the reader will probably have solved much earlier in the book, once again the writing turns clunky. The dialogue reads like a bad translation. In fact, the book reads almost like it was written by two different authors. Despite that, I have to say I am very glad I read the book. It was enough to keep me turning pages right up to the end. I wonder if some of the other problems will be ironed out before final publication.
October 13, 2012
It was OK. I thought this was a spy thriller, but turns out it was a crime thriller (yawn). Most crime thrillers are as enjoyable as "legal thrillers" (nice oxymoron right there).
This story may not be what you expect. It opens as Louis Morgon is ousted from the CIA. He goes into a downward spiral ... only to recover by moving to rural France. In Morgon's new home, he finds some unexpected materials. Fascinated, Morgon enlists help from Renard, a French policeman, to learn more.
From there, the story moves into the past, telling the story of how the village had coped with being occupied by Germans during World War II. The events develop in ways that present ambiguities that aren't explained until the story's end. So there are mysteries here for the reader, in addition to mysteries for Morgon.
It raises questions about war crimes, patriotism and survival when an occupied army controls your country. Ironically, Morgon plays less of a role than usual as he is more the second banana catalyst enabling readers to learn what happened in WWII France. Instead characters from the 1940s like Simon the Berlin Jewish French resistance leader, marvelous Marie and Nazis with hearts make this a winner as war is hell on everyone except fat cat chicken hawks.
The Resistance isn't all that bad, told mostly from the perspective of the people of Saint-Leon of the 1940s. Louis Morgon actually plays a relatively small role here, but it is a clever way of developing the storyline. The identity of the "Liberation" writer remains a mystery right up to the very end, but this book should be enjoyed for more than just the mystery, also for the strong characters and their range of emotions: love and hate, violence and forgiveness. It is a time of history that many would like to forget, but it is a time of history that needs to be remembered.
I thought the story had a drawback in that the plot was developed a bit too neatly. As such, there's an element of a fairy tale feeling ... rather than of utter realism.
The story's great strength is that it captures the perspective well of what it's like to be occupied by an enemy nation. I still didn't like the book much.
If you're looking for mysteries, give it a shot. If you're looking for actual thrillers, try something else.
This story may not be what you expect. It opens as Louis Morgon is ousted from the CIA. He goes into a downward spiral ... only to recover by moving to rural France. In Morgon's new home, he finds some unexpected materials. Fascinated, Morgon enlists help from Renard, a French policeman, to learn more.
From there, the story moves into the past, telling the story of how the village had coped with being occupied by Germans during World War II. The events develop in ways that present ambiguities that aren't explained until the story's end. So there are mysteries here for the reader, in addition to mysteries for Morgon.
It raises questions about war crimes, patriotism and survival when an occupied army controls your country. Ironically, Morgon plays less of a role than usual as he is more the second banana catalyst enabling readers to learn what happened in WWII France. Instead characters from the 1940s like Simon the Berlin Jewish French resistance leader, marvelous Marie and Nazis with hearts make this a winner as war is hell on everyone except fat cat chicken hawks.
The Resistance isn't all that bad, told mostly from the perspective of the people of Saint-Leon of the 1940s. Louis Morgon actually plays a relatively small role here, but it is a clever way of developing the storyline. The identity of the "Liberation" writer remains a mystery right up to the very end, but this book should be enjoyed for more than just the mystery, also for the strong characters and their range of emotions: love and hate, violence and forgiveness. It is a time of history that many would like to forget, but it is a time of history that needs to be remembered.
I thought the story had a drawback in that the plot was developed a bit too neatly. As such, there's an element of a fairy tale feeling ... rather than of utter realism.
The story's great strength is that it captures the perspective well of what it's like to be occupied by an enemy nation. I still didn't like the book much.
If you're looking for mysteries, give it a shot. If you're looking for actual thrillers, try something else.
September 3, 2012
Louis Morgon lost his job and his family. He ends up walking the French countryside to sort through the pain. He eventually settles in the small town of Saint-Leon-sur-Dême. He buys a small cottage and during renovations, finds old French Resistance flyers hidden away which present a murder mystery. For the majority of the book, the reader is in the 1940s town of Saint-Leon-sur-Dême with a young man named Onesime who maps the Nazi occupation and their activities.
The story follows the town over four years as the resistance makes inroads amongst the villagers. The burning question was who had setup several resistance members to be murdered. After the bulk of the book spent in the 1940s, you are back with Louis Morgan as he pieces together what happened and starts on the trail of the person who had betrayed neighbors.
Onesime, his brother Jean, and his mother, along with rest of the villagers, envelope the reader in a rural french town struggling under the Nazi occupation. There are no black and white issues or people in this tale, everything is shades of gray.
The town of Saint-Leon-sur-Dême is an integral part of the story. The network of caves that are owned by villagers to store wine barrels and food is taken over by the Nazi's and used to store arms and ammunition. The caves are a great atmospheric touch and realistic. The sense of fear permeates the town and characters.
The plot is an intricate cat and mouse dance of resistance members who can't even trust family, nor the local police. It is a walk in a mine field where even a slight misstep results in death - or worse.
The reveal of the informant who had resistance members killed is somewhat anti-climatic, but it was realistic. The writing was superb, with bold characterization, vivid setting, and detailed plot. This is a fantastic suspenseful story that leaves the reader on the edge of the seat, anxious to find out what happens next.
Rating: Near Perfect - Buy two copies: one for you and one for a friend.
Obtained Through: Publisher for honest review
Mysteries and My Musings http://www.mysterysuspence.blogspot.com/
The story follows the town over four years as the resistance makes inroads amongst the villagers. The burning question was who had setup several resistance members to be murdered. After the bulk of the book spent in the 1940s, you are back with Louis Morgan as he pieces together what happened and starts on the trail of the person who had betrayed neighbors.
Onesime, his brother Jean, and his mother, along with rest of the villagers, envelope the reader in a rural french town struggling under the Nazi occupation. There are no black and white issues or people in this tale, everything is shades of gray.
The town of Saint-Leon-sur-Dême is an integral part of the story. The network of caves that are owned by villagers to store wine barrels and food is taken over by the Nazi's and used to store arms and ammunition. The caves are a great atmospheric touch and realistic. The sense of fear permeates the town and characters.
The plot is an intricate cat and mouse dance of resistance members who can't even trust family, nor the local police. It is a walk in a mine field where even a slight misstep results in death - or worse.
The reveal of the informant who had resistance members killed is somewhat anti-climatic, but it was realistic. The writing was superb, with bold characterization, vivid setting, and detailed plot. This is a fantastic suspenseful story that leaves the reader on the edge of the seat, anxious to find out what happens next.
Rating: Near Perfect - Buy two copies: one for you and one for a friend.
Obtained Through: Publisher for honest review
Mysteries and My Musings http://www.mysterysuspence.blogspot.com/
March 15, 2014
In 1974 Louis Morgon is fired from the CIA and his wife left him. He decides to take some time to sort his life out and begins a long walk across France, ending up in the little village of St-Leon.
He establishes himself there, and starts to renovate an old farm house. A WWII era pistol and mimeographed Resistance newsletter found under a floorboard send him to his friend Renard, the village policeman, for more information about life there during the war. Renard’s father was the village policeman during the German occupation and a POW in Russia after, but he has never told his family about those experiences.
As Morgon and the younger Renard try to discover how the items came to be hidden in his house, they are faced with the fact that most of the villagers are unwilling to talk about the past. There are too many painful memories of lost loved ones, too many questions still remaining about who resisted and who collaborated. Was Renard’s father a hero or a traitor?
The book does a great job of describing the insidious way the occupiers gradually turn the villagers into willing participants in their own imprisonment. There are moral ambiguities everywhere – to be a hero and a patriot, one must become a criminal, must do terrible things. Some of the villagers betray their friends and relatives, some of the Nazis risk their lives to help refugees escape the country. To be safe, one must keep everything secret from everybody – even the closest family cannot know – and segmented – so each member of a Resistance team knows only his or her own part in an action. Otherwise there is the danger of betrayal, torture and death.
This book, but it is a fascinating look at a bit of history that is fast fading from the public consciousness. It is not Morgon’s story this time – he is a witness rather than an actor, but he is key in pushing for the truth.
He establishes himself there, and starts to renovate an old farm house. A WWII era pistol and mimeographed Resistance newsletter found under a floorboard send him to his friend Renard, the village policeman, for more information about life there during the war. Renard’s father was the village policeman during the German occupation and a POW in Russia after, but he has never told his family about those experiences.
As Morgon and the younger Renard try to discover how the items came to be hidden in his house, they are faced with the fact that most of the villagers are unwilling to talk about the past. There are too many painful memories of lost loved ones, too many questions still remaining about who resisted and who collaborated. Was Renard’s father a hero or a traitor?
The book does a great job of describing the insidious way the occupiers gradually turn the villagers into willing participants in their own imprisonment. There are moral ambiguities everywhere – to be a hero and a patriot, one must become a criminal, must do terrible things. Some of the villagers betray their friends and relatives, some of the Nazis risk their lives to help refugees escape the country. To be safe, one must keep everything secret from everybody – even the closest family cannot know – and segmented – so each member of a Resistance team knows only his or her own part in an action. Otherwise there is the danger of betrayal, torture and death.
This book, but it is a fascinating look at a bit of history that is fast fading from the public consciousness. It is not Morgon’s story this time – he is a witness rather than an actor, but he is key in pushing for the truth.
July 20, 2016
This is a less than excellent novel of the resistance & its opposition by the pro-Vichy militia, occurring in a small town of central France(near Tours). It starts off as an American, an ex-CIA agent is fired, and is abandoned by his wife(& children), leading him to wander aimlessly in France & finally to settle in the town where he makes friends & buys an old house. While doing necessary repairs, he discovers a barely legible printed handbill ,dating back to wartime, that leads him to investigate this further. The book then switches back to the events that followed the German occupation of the town in 1941, and explores the role of collaborators & resistants, with much of the book devoted to untangling the frequently devious or obscure alignments of the various characters, and showing in the end the mayor to be responsible for setting a trap that killed a dozen resistants, but then passing himself off after the war as being on the other side & being decorated by de Gaulle, & becoming a member of the government, until exposed by our American hero.
July 11, 2023
This interesting novel explores small town life during World War II in Nazi-occupied France where the underground resistance, though somewhat successful in disrupting enemy operations, operates at the greatest of risk not only to the rebels but to ordinary citizens as well. It is life dominated by uncertainty. Who, among your fellow local citizens, are collaborating with the occupiers? Who are working with the resistance? How do you go about work and family life in a world characterized by chronic terror? Can you speak freely with family and friends? And how do you and your countrymen live together after the occupation is over? How will you be remembered?
This was my first Peter Steiner novel. I'll keep an eye out for others.
This was my first Peter Steiner novel. I'll keep an eye out for others.
March 13, 2013
This was in interesting read, a thriller and a detective story, with one foot firmly planted in each genre. The reluctance to examine the past that is a major difficulty in examining a 50 year old crime is explained by the careful examination of the self-conflicted problems of each of the participants, then and now. Very enjoyable for how the novel brought this reader to a better understanding of the complexities of living in an occupied country. It might be interesting to ask or imagine the result of asking an Iraqi citizen what they thought about this, if they read this book, and lived in-country during the last 10 years.
November 3, 2013
Very very good! Much of the story takes place in the past during WWII, as you might imagine, in a small French village, so it is only at the beginning and end that the reader gets to see the protagonist of this series at work. The character and writer are new to me so I will have to go to other books to get their full measure. However, the story is gripping and there is definitely a mystery.
Who was the traitor who set up twelve brave maquis to be gunned down by collaborators one dark night many years ago? The reader finds out at the end, and it is the sleuths of 1978 who wrap up the mystery. Justice? That is a harder matter to resolve....
Who was the traitor who set up twelve brave maquis to be gunned down by collaborators one dark night many years ago? The reader finds out at the end, and it is the sleuths of 1978 who wrap up the mystery. Justice? That is a harder matter to resolve....
March 31, 2014
Steiner is consistently thoughtful and engaging. While this novel is anchored in the present by his series' protagonist, Louis Morgon, the larger part of the story delves into the history of Morgon's adopted French village. The story of the village's response to German occupation during the Petain years is told with Steiner's usual ability to create rounded and believable characters and compelling relationships. But the real glory of this unassuming "mystery" book is Steiner's appreciation and understanding of moral ambiguity. An engrossing read.
December 18, 2016
Chilling as well as thrilling, reading it at the end of 2016. So many sentences about a French village occupied by the Nazis, the collaboration there, the resistance, so many actions that resonate with a cold finger up the spine ... there is a mystery, and the behavior of those living in a world that is brutal, cruel and inhuman is a revelation as we watch those who collaborate with the oppressors everywhere, and those who love and are loyal to the good. The cruelty and the sacrifices, it is hard to read the reality and today, hard to live it. To read slowly, and then re-read.
May 24, 2012
I was fortunate to win this book in a Goodreads giveaway.
I very much enjoyed reading it. The story was full of intrigue about the resistance movement in France during WWII. It was interesting in that the author "flashed back" to that time period as a result of someone finding hidden articles in an old home that were from that time. Very well written and held my interest throughout, I would recommend this book to anyone.
I very much enjoyed reading it. The story was full of intrigue about the resistance movement in France during WWII. It was interesting in that the author "flashed back" to that time period as a result of someone finding hidden articles in an old home that were from that time. Very well written and held my interest throughout, I would recommend this book to anyone.
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