The Typewriter and the Guillotine: An American Journalist, a German Serial Killer, and Paris on the Eve of WWII

by Mark Braude

As thrilling as Agent Josephine and A Woman of No Importance, the propulsive untold story of a trailblazing female New Yorker reporter in France on the eve of WWII who begins sounding the alarm as a German serial killer stalks the Parisian streets, from award-winning author Mark Braude.

In 1922, Janet Flanner arrived in Paris with dreams of writing about “Beauty with a capital B” for The New Yorker. Then a niche publication, her employer was self-consciously apolitical, seeking only breezy reports on French art and culture. As signs of frightening extremism, economic turmoil, and widespread discontent became apparent, Flanner ignored her editor’s directives, reinventing herself, her assignment, and The New Yorker in the process.

Working tirelessly to alert American readers to the dangers of German’s chancellor and the worrying developments across the Atlantic, Flanner soon became enmeshed in the disturbing criminal case of a man who embodied all of the darkness she was being forced to confront. The child of two proud Nazis, Eugen Weidmann’s crimes were explicitly political and for Flanner, who covered Weidmann’s crimes, capture, and trial, the case served as a guiding metaphor through which to understand the tumultuous years through which she’d just passed and to prepare herself for the dangers to come.
 
Set against the epic backdrop of pre-WWII Europe, THE TYPEWRITER AND THE GUILLOTINE tracks how Weidmann’s case and the political turmoil of the period transformed Flanner from naïve writer to the hard-hitting journalist who exposed Americans to the warning signs of WWII.
 

Genres: Nonfiction, History, True Crime, Biography, France, Crime, World War II

432 pages, Hardcover

First published January 20, 2026

About the author

MARK BRAUDE is a cultural historian and the author of KIKI MAN RAY: ART, LOVE, AND RIVALRY IN 1920S PARIS (W.W. Norton, Summer 2022), THE INVISIBLE EMPEROR: NAPOLEON ON ELBA FROM EXILE TO ESCAPE (Penguin Press, 2018), and MAKING MONTE CARLO: A HISTORY OF SPECULATION AND SPECTACLE (Simon & Schuster, 2016). His books have been translated into several languages.

Mark was a 2020 visiting fellow at the American Library in Paris and was named a 2017 NEH Public Scholar. He is the recipient of grants from the Robert B. Silvers Foundation, the Canada Council for the Arts, the de Groot Foundation, and others. He has been a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University’s Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA) and a lecturer in Stanford’s departments of Art History, French, and History.

Mark was born in Vancouver and went to college at the University of British Columbia. He received an MA from NYU’s Institute of French Studies and a PhD in History and Visual Studies from USC. He has written for The Globe and Mail, The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, and others. He lives in Vancouver with his wife and their two daughters.

Reviews

[Katie B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Grand Central Publishing for sending me a free copy!

History has a way of repeating itself and I’ll admit it was eerie reading this book that takes place in Europe during the years leading up to World War Two. It’s not hard to see the parallels between the Nazi party rise to power way back then and what’s going on today. For that reason, add this book to your tbr list. It’s a read which provides that extra motivation to keep fighting against evil.

The Typewriter part of the title refers to Janet Flanner and her career as a writer. An American who moved to Paris in the 1920s, she was hired by the newly founded New Yorker magazine to write about French arts and culture. Eventually her letters for the publication veer in a different direction as she reports back on the pulse of Europe as they witness Hitler gaining more and more control. For many Americans this was their first insight that trouble was a brewing overseas.

Eugen Weidmann was the son of Nazis and went on a killing spree that ends after his execution by guillotine. Noteworthy as it was the last public execution in France. Janet Flanner wrote about his crimes and trial.

A book worth reading as Flanner was an interesting woman and trailblazer. While married for a few years, she had female lovers for much of her life. Her narrative writing style helped shaped the New Yorker magazine which recently celebrated its 100th anniversary.

3.75 stars

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to admit that I was not sure that I wanted to read The Typewriter and the Guillotine, a non-fiction book which tells stories of two people in Paris at the outbreak of WWII, Janet Flanner (the “Typewriter”), an American who wrote letters about the French for The New Yorker magazine, and Eugen Weidmann (the “Guillotine”), a German serial killer. I loved the cover and the description of the book but was not drawn in by the title. The deciding factor to invest the time to read it for me was my love of Erik Larson’s “The Devil in the White City”, a book which also blended two separate stories which shared a time and place.

I enjoyed this book but not to the extent to which I had hoped. While I did enjoy reading about both main characters, I found Weidmann’s part of the story more interesting than Flanner’s. The fact that significantly more of the book is devoted to Flanner only left me disappointed that the mix was not more 50/50. Also, as their two stories were only slightly connected, I wondered if I might have enjoyed two standalone books more than this combined one.

One thing I enjoyed was getting to learn about life in Paris just before the start of the war, when Flanner found herself writing about politics more and arts and culture less. The author does a good job of describing what she went through and the danger in which she might have found herself.

I do believe the book was well-researched. I’d recommend it for people interested in learning about the WWII time frame and how the rise of Hitler was witnessed by people of neighboring countries. I’m concerned that people interested in true crime stories might find themselves wishing that there was more discussion of Weidmann.

Thanks to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for providing me the opportunity to read The Typewriter and the Guillotine. The above opinions are my own.

[Moonkiszt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Titles get me everytime. The Typewriter and the Guillotine: An American Journalist, a German Serial Killer, and Paris on the Eve of WWII is just such a one. . .by leading with two agenda possessing tangibles tying together two questing humans residing within one of earths' most compelling locations during a lull between wars.

Janet Flanner is the journalist - writing the Letter from Paris column for the New Yorker from 1925 to 1975. She'd left stifling Indiana for Paris early on in her life as it allowed her the freedoms and beauty she longed for and found in that lovely city. As she wrote and reported, a name crossed her desk. That of a serial killer who drew her obsessive attention thereafter: Eugen Weidmann.

Primarily this is a book about Janet Flanner, in Paris amongst those in her well-connected social circle. She knew many famous writers and high-profile people whose interactions provide to current day readers the political sense that pervaded Parisian hot spots and low spots. The criminal activities of Weidmann and his cohorts show the darker side of those bright lights.

Through the lens of Paris Mark Braude presents a telling picture of the world before it all blew up. Again.

*A sincere thank you to Mark Braude, Grand Central Publishing, and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review independently.* 26|52:8b

[E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting non-fiction about an American journalist in Paris documenting Paris, London and Germany pre WWII and the story of a serial killer. It reads a bit like Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. The early parts of the book focus on the gay, fun Parisian life and slowly get darker as war approaches. The author clearly did a huge amount of research and captured the sentiment of people living in Europe at the time through the journalist’s true reporting in The New Yorker. Juxtaposing the serial killer story seemed a bit forced. The killer was German and because of the politics at the time, ties were made to the conflicts of fascism, communism and democracy. It seemed a bit odd to me to keep switching from one story to the next, leaving both a bit under-served. Some parts of the book moved swiftly while others dragged. Because the journalist left Paris before the war started in earnest and returned after liberation it felt like a huge gap. The author took on a bit much I felt. Is it a biography of the journalist and her journey as a writer, a reporting of prewar Europe in terms of culture and politics, or a story of murder and crime. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it felt forced. So I give this 3.5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

[Janine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this ARC from NetGalley and the publisher, Grand Central Publishing, for an honest review. This book is filled lots of post WWI and pre-WWII history surrounding an untold story a “trailblazing” New Yorker writer, Janet Flannery, who sounded the warning of the rise of Hitler and fascism. She lived in Paris during the heady times of the mid-1920s hobnobbing with the likes of Ernest Hemingway and the Murphys of F. Scott Fitzgerald fame and chronicling the devastating effects of WWI. Leaping into the 1930s, through German contacts she was able to experience the Nuremberg rally and the 1936 Olympics. It was her three piece New Yorker expose of her times in Germany that alerted America to a creeping danger. It was during this time that she also became gripped by a disturbing series of crimes by a German national who became the last man to be publicly executed by guillotine (that execution was in 1977 until capital punishment was ended in 1981). She covered the trial and execution. This was fascinating book. My only criticism is that I think rather than separating the two stories (Flannery and the killer), it might have just been better to intertwine the murder coverage as part of what is really a biography of Janet Flannery. Learned a lot and would recommend.

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 ⭐️

The Typewriter and the Guillotine tells the story of two people in France and Germany during the 1930s to 1940s. Janet Flanner, a reporter for the NewYorker, living in Paris and Eugen Weidmann, a German man.

While I found the book interesting, I enjoyed the parts about Weidmann more than the ones about Flanner. The parts about Weidmann seemed, to me, more interesting than the parts about Flanner. Flanner's parts of the book seemed to drag in a lot of places. I could tell that Braude did a lot of research for the book.
Overall, the book was interesting, but it lacked something.

Tentative Publication: January 20, 2026

Thanks to Netgalley, General Central Publication, and Mark Braude for the E-ARC of the book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

#Netgalley #GrandCentralPublishing #MarkBraude #TheTypewriterandtheGuillotine

[Maria Almaguer · Rating 3 out of 5]

While an interesting history of an American woman's time in Paris (working for the then hot new magazine, The New Yorker) alongside the life and crimes of a German serial killer, the two stories did not quite coalesce as I thought they would.

Janet Flanner (writing as “Genêt”) was a journalist with a regular gig writing to Americans about the sights and sounds of the City of Light in the glittering years leading up to the second World War. Eugen Weidmann was a disturbed grifter turned killer who terrorized France. I expected that Flanner followed the story closely but that wasn't the case. Yes, she wrote about it but her experience was really the war. This is a well written and interesting book about two figures I knew nothing about so I did enjoy it. As a librarian, I appreciated the Notes (I won't read a book without them) but there was no index when I wanted to look up a person's name. Recommended for both Francophiles and true crime aficionados.

[Barb reads......it ALL! · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent dual storylines set during Europe's most challenging period in history. Well-researched, great writing!

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was enjoyable—I love all things New Yorker and all things Paris so I am the target audience. It’s a good thing I wasn’t in it for the serial killer, though, because poor thing is an afterthought.

Better titles:

Janet Flanner in Paris, also A Guy is There
Janet Flanner’s Paris: 90% Janet and 10% Random Killer
Dammit, Janet (Ten Percent of Your Book is About This Other Guy)

[TJ Macaluso · Rating 4 out of 5]

99 books. 1 to go. What do I choose?

[Jacklyn B · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a mix of history and drama with a side of true crime. It was very well researched and covers the years leading up to and just after WWII.

This one of those books where I had to keep double checking that this was, in fact, nonfiction. It reads like a historical fiction/true crime book and I found myself completely captivated by Janet Flanner’s story and the cross over to the story of Eugen Weidmann - a German serial killer.

This book is more history than true crime starting with Janet heading to Paris to write articles that were more art and lifestyle and as she put it "Beauty with a Capital B." She wrote for a new magazine called The New Yorker and they had originally steered clear of politics…but she reported on what she saw…and that was the rise of fascism.

Her letters ultimately shaped the direction of The New Yorker and gave American’s first hand knowledge of what was happening in France. She also covered the case of Eugen Weidmann, who ultimately became the last public execution in France.

[Paul Wagenbreth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Compelling enough just at the straight narrative level, the two separate but not unrelated story lines of Mark Braude’s “The Typewriter and the Guillotine,” be it the smaller scale account of the series of murders that would make for a date with the blade for the clearly psychopathic Eugen Weidmann (as if he were “receiving guests at a party,” he’s described as when he leads authorities to victims’ bodies) or the larger-scale depiction of Germany’s embrace of Nazism, the full exuberance of which the book’s protagonist, Indianapolis-born journalist Janet Flanner, would get a taste of at a 1935 Nazi rally which drew hundreds of thousands to the “fairy-tale” town of Nuremberg, which would also be the location, partly because of the symbolic import of its having hosted the annual Nazi rallies, for the postwar trial of the Reich perpetrators.
Compelling enough, as I say, strictly as narrative history, the twin stories of Braude’s book which will no doubt have most readers quick to turn pages, though just as compelling for me as a journalist, if not for lay readers, was a running question posed in the book, a question given relevance in our own time with the situation in Minneapolis, where citizens are being asked, Gestapo-like, for their papers and resistance is being met with violence or even death, of whether sometimes events are of such moment or direness as to call for or even demand that journalists abandon their time-honored stance of impartiality, even at the risk of possibly giving more importance to an event than it deserves or, conversely, not enough attention to an event that truly deserves it.
The precise complaint, indeed, the latter, that was made against Flanner, whose early dispatches from Europe, where she’d been dispatched to report on matters of interest there, was criticized for not being sufficiently regardful of the Nazi threat at a time when a call for “announcing ideological affinities, unabashedly and unwaveringly," was being sounded by many intellectuals of the day, among them shipping heiress and writer Nancy Cunard, who was also a friend of Flanner’s and who publicly declared that the time had come for writers all over the world to take sides because ironic detachment would no longer do.
Something of a rift, indeed, Flanner’s reluctance to take a stand, made between the two women, though she did make a small step toward partisanship when in a piece she did on Spanish bullfighting she touched on how external events were impinging on the sport: “Because men are tragically fighting men in Spain, the best of Spanish bullfighting is being done in summer in southern France.”
Overall, though, she clung for a good while to her “politically reticent position," even becoming distressed that she might have made her support for the Republicans too obvious in writing about the “sad story” that she and Cunard witnessed in Perpignan, France, a holding area for Spanish Republican refugees fleeing Franco’s forces, where, with smoke hanging “like a flat, low second sky” and people “burning whatever they could to keep warm,” she “couldn’t think of anything in modern history with which it could be compared.”
To be fair, though, it had been Flanner’s specific charge from her employer, The New Yorker, for whom she felt a special fondness for how “nowhere else could she find ‘its particular mixture of lunacy and leniency’,” that she steer clear of war reporting and focus on art and culture at a time when, as Virginia Woolf noted, the Edward-Wallis Simpson marriage, about which Flanner dutifully penned a paragraph or two, elbowed out “Spain, Germany, Russia” and stretched “from one end of the paper to another.”
Too, Flanner was just plain uncomfortable writing about war, a not unwarranted concern, with Hemingway saying of her bullfighting piece, with its slight essay into the fighting in Spain, that “if a journalistic prize is ever given for the worst sports writer in the western world, I’m going to see you get it, pal, for you deserve it. You’re perfectly terrible.”
Still, it was from Hemingway, with whom she shared a particular affinity with both their fathers having committed suicide, that she got some of what she considered the finest advice she’d ever gotten about writing, including, in an instruction he liked to quote from Emily Dickinson, to “tell all the truth but tell it slant,” an instruction that Flanner put her own spin on in her journalism when she sought out the “seemingly superficial but ultimately illuminating particulars that other reporters ignored when covering the same story.”
It was, indeed, that special touch of hers, that particular manner of expression, that eventually got her editors at The New Yorker to relent on their shyness from her doing any war reporting and press her to deliver accounts of the European political situation in the way that only she could.
About Hitler, for instance, with whom she labored to get an interview and of whom she was one of the first to give Americans a first impression, her piece began with a joke of sorts: “It was odd … that a man who didn’t drink, smoke, eat meat, or, apparently, sleep with women, should be dictator of a nation devoted to splendid sausages, cigars, beer, and babies.” And while she judged his mind “limited” and his face inappropriate to fame, “with deft sleight of hand, through a great accumulation of anecdote and trivia, she went on to achieve her goal … to present Hitler, a man with foibles like any other, as the embodiment of the new and terrifying realities imposed by the Nazi party.”
And it was that same distinctive slant of hers that she brought to bear on the Weidmann business, about which she went for a wider aperture when she found in one of the victims the American “weakness” for “sociability with strangers” and in Weidmann attributes emblematic of the German character – something, indeed, that made for the cornerstone of the defense mounted by Weidmann's counsel, when in his summation he said that “Weidmann’s ‘milieu,’ the environment in which he was raised, had exacerbated his existing hereditary disposition for evil.”
“Germany,” he argued, overtly making a connection between Weidemann and the nation itself, “was ‘monstrous’, and monsters beget more monsters. …The blood in his veins … and the climate of his days collaborated to produce the work that is Weidmann. His body held in it the rage of an entire nation.”
To no avail, though, his oratory, magnificent enough that it drew him a burst of applause when he finished, with how it was after only three weeks, and it makes for no spoiler to report this with how it’s evident in the book’s first chapter, that the jury returned a guilty verdict – Weidemann, along with his chief confederate, would be guillotined, a messy affair when it was carried out, with his head having to be repositioned twice and a few of the women spectators dipping the hems of their dresses in his blood, believing in a centuries-old myth that a condemned man’s blood increased fertility.
Gruesome, to be sure, the details of his demise, as were some of the details that came out of the Nuremberg trial testimony which Flanner didn't flinch from reporting – a German police dog, for instance, eating a living man or a starved pig eating a man, wife and child while bystanding Germans pointed and laughed, or German soldiers sticking signs next to decapitated heads, including a child’s, reading, “Spring Fruit!”
Gripping stuff, for all the horribleness.
Not so gripping, to my mind, the police-procedural details of Weidmann’s capture, which frankly I found somewhat tedious and hard to follow, what with the multitude of actors, both authorities and offenders. And I’m not sure that the extensive focus on Flanner’s personal life, including her sexual orientation, added much overall to Braude’s book.
Still, quite the enthralling read, his account of times and events not without parallels to our own time in America, where Trump’s stated sentiment of not wanting Somalis, or, for that matter, most immigrants, in this country (not to mention his deploying an ICE armada against them) isn’t all that removed from the “Jews Not Welcome” signs that Flanner saw at the entrances to towns.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I felt the connection between the journalist and the serial killer wasn’t much of a connection and felt like two stories thrust into one book.

[Carole Barker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A journalist sees a killer as a metaphor for coming war

Janet Flanner, one of many Americans who travelled to Europe in search of a richer and more cultured life, arrived in Paris in the 1920's with her lover Solita Solano. She wanted to be A Writer and was enthralled with her life as an expat, although she would come to make her name in a different way than she had originally envisioned. She did publish a novel but she was not another Ernest Hemingway nor a Gertrude Stein (although she socialized in the same circles and knew them both); she was offered the job of writing a column on life in France for a new magazine, The New Yorker, which she accepted as much for its promise of steady pay as anything else. Her tone was to be light and ironic, and the subject matter mostly gossip and fashion at the start. But as the 20's became the 30's and political upheavals in Germany, Russia and Spain took center stage Flanner would find it difficult to not include (at least indirectly) what she was seeing as the politics of communists, fascists and Nazis loomed menacingly over the horizon. During these same years, German born Eugen Weidmann was also living in France and pursuing his own career path....as a serial killer. He was a troubled child, sent away from home when his actions reflected badly on his family, did time in prison and emerged determined to emulate the Chicago mobsters about whom he had read. He decided that kidnapping wealthy tourists would be a great way to make money but quickly found that murder was his preferred métier. He was caught, tried and publicly executed in June of 1939 just before World War II exploded across Europe. Flanner would report on the sensational crimes and trial for the New Yorker, seeing it as a vehicle through which she could show her readers the coming danger from Germany and the turmoil in which France and much of Europe found itself.
There are two stories being told in this work of non-fiction, the biography of a woman writer for what would become an influential magazine and that of a good looking but sociopathic young man who took numerous lives before being caught. I found both stories to be interesting but was puzzled as to why the author tried to combine their stories between one cover. Yes, they take place during the same period of time and in the same place, and yes Janet Flanner did write about Weidmann in her column, but the crossing of their paths was rather brief. Author Mark Braude clearly did a tremendous amount of research into both people and brought to life an interesting time in French history, but ultimately I wished that he had picked one or the other and wrote the whole book about that single person. Flanner was a successful magazine columnist working for a storied magazine nearly from its conception; she left behind her Midwestern upbringing and her mother and sister in order to pursue her passion for writing as well as her love for other women. She travelled to Germany as Hitler rose to power, observed his impact on the German people and noted his talent for spectacle. In short, there was plenty of material for a full biography just on her. Do the same people who would find her story interesting also find true crime as compelling? I'm not sure that is the case, and other reviews I have read seem to express a strong preference for one over the other. That said, there is enough interesting material here that I found it a worthwhile read (although it did drag on a bit in sections), a 3.5 ⭐️ rounded up to 4, and I think it appeal to readers of Erik Larson, Simon Winchester and Sonia Purnell. My thanks to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for allowing me access to the book in exchange for my honest review.

[Michael Reilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1925 Janet Flanner was a friend of Jane Grant, who was a reporter for the New York Times. Jane's husband was Harold Ross, the founding editor of the four-month-old New Yorker magazine. Jane wrote Janet and asked her if she would be willing to be the New Yorker's Paris correspondent. They weren't looking for a news reporter. They were looking for someone to give Americans a sense of the "anecdotal and incidental" stuff that made Paris. Jane suggested Janet because Janet's letter to her from Paris were so interesting.

Janet agreed. She was born in Indianapolis. Her father owned a mortuary. She worked as a reporter. She moved to New York City. She had a short unsuccessful marriage. She moved to Paris with her lifelong lover Solita Solano, although they both had multiple affairs with other women. She aspired to be a novelist. She agreed to the journalism for the New Yorker as a way to support herself.

She wrote the "Letter From Paris" in the New Yorker under the name "Genet" for fifty years. She also wrote significant articles in the New Yorker under her own name.

In this book, Mark Braude has the brilliant idea of telling the story of Flanner's years in Paris before WW2 in parallel to the story of Eugen Weidmann. He was the most notorious serial killer in France during that same period. He was a German who ended up in Paris. In a haphazard almost careless manner, he killed a young woman who was an American tourist, a producer interested in a show he was supposedly putting on, a taxicab driver, an investor in his phony company, and a young man he met in jail. He was caught and became the last person publicly executed in France.

Flanner covered Weimann's trial and mentioned him in several of her Paris letters but there was not a strong connection. What Braue does is give a picture of how complicated Paris was between the wars. Flanner traveled in a high artistic world. She palled around with Hemingway and Gertude Stein. She went to all of the biggest art openings and fashion shows. She was invited to all of the best parties.

Weidmann was a clever, handsome guy who was in and out of prison. He seems to have been a sociopath who had the ability to charm and attract people. He moves in a world of hustling and cons. He is able to attract men and woman to follow him down murderous paths. His sidekick was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Braude shows Flanner slowly coming to the reluctant conclusion that in late 1930s France, she has to talk about the social and political madness going on around her. In 1936 traveled to Germany and wrote a long portrait of Hitler. It was one of the first in depth descriptions. She did not appreciate the depth of his evil, but she did make it clear that he was not good for Germany. She eventually became a very respected voice on politics, but she always felt uncomfortable as an authoritative voice. She was not a doctrinaire leftist, but she saw the true nature of the Fascists. She said, "if there is anything I dislike more than Bolshies, it's Fascists."

Braude describes her complicated personal life. He gives a sense of the American ex-pat Paris crowd. As the thirties come to an end, most of the American's left. Paris wasn't fun anymore. Flanner stayed as long as possible and came back as soon as she could after the war.

This is a full picture of Paris between the wars. It is good telling of the evolution of Flanner as a writer, and it is a clear and terrifying picture of a mysterious monster.

One nit to pick. This kind of book should have an index.

[Maine Colonial · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read a free advance digital review copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley.

American Janet Flanner went to Paris in the 1920s and spent the interwar years writing the famed Letter From Paris column in the New Yorker (among other things), and was a part of Paris’s famed literary set. Though she definitely didn’t disclose this to the folks back home, she lived with another woman and had a long-term affair with a third woman. She hoped for fame as a novelist, but her efforts in that direction weren’t positive. Instead, her Letters and profiles of European figures, like an early three-part profile on Hitler, made her name in the US and Europe. Though she’d intended to focus on the arts, her work increasingly was taken up with the political; not surprising considering the ferment of the time. She also returned to Europe after the war and continued her New Yorker column for many years.

While focusing on politics and the arts, Flanner became as intrigued as most French people with a serial killer operating in and around Paris. That serial killer, we learn in other chapters of this non-fiction story, was a young German war veteran and small-time criminal named Eugen Weidmann. The Weidmann chapters trace his story from the end of his World War I service through his crimes, his trial, and his execution.

The choice to meld a historical biography with a true-crime story will remind many readers of The Devil In the White City. Though this should be equally interesting, it doesn’t reach that level. While the true-crime story is compelling, it doesn’t become much of a factor in the book until almost halfway through, and overall it takes up such a relatively small part of the book that it seems incongruous. While Flanner wrote about the case several times, there are only brief references to that, making any connection between Flanner’s story and Weidmann’s feel tenuous at best.

Janet Flanner’s story should be fascinating, but her chapters drag at times. I’m not entirely sure why, but I think it’s that Braude is at too much pains to display all of the research he did about her and her experiences, and the result is a bit bloated and flat; the times and places don’t come alive. It’s still an interesting story, but at times a bit of an effort to get through.

2.5 stars, rounded to 3.

[Magdelanye · Rating 4 out of 5]

democracy is not geared to meet crises.....because democracy was an old idea, it functioned slowly and and deliberately...while fascism, born in the 2oth century could strike with horrible speed. p258

It's melancholy to see how quickly humanity, if left free after its initial success, doubts the early earnest union that gave it cause and strength and squabbles itself to bits. p237

It seems remarkable that just when it seems that all has been raked over and everyone has had their go at telling history, another angle emerges. War is a rupture of civilizations and it only pauses in its destructive pattern to grab the spoils. Mark Braude chronicles here how slow people were to react to the looming danger of German expansion and how one woman in particular, tentatively at first but with increasing conviction, alerted America to the absolute peril.

Everyone had agreed to delude themselves with fantasies of peace and cooperation. p182

A reign of efficiently getting nothing done...of making sure nothing will be done, that the stupid will be in power and protected and that talent and energy are frowned upon as poor taste....p301

Moving around Paris in 1937 it is quite possible that Janet Flanner and Eugen Weidmann passed each other by, quite likely at the Expo that year, where the outlandishly ostentatious exhibits of the Russian and the German embassies competed with each other across the boulevard. She was reporting for the newly launched New Yorker and he was scouting for victims.

Janet Flanner was an American journalist, although that might be the least interesting fact to be noted about her ex-pat Parisian life style and her remarkable character and achievements. MB gives readers a rather brusquely sympathetic outline of her amorous relationships as they pertain to the larger story he captures. In a time when these concepts were being sorely tested, JF was dedicated to democracy, justice and truth and considered it her job to witness as her contribution. EW operated out of meagre delusions that led him to kill without care his random victims. More than a simple example of good versus evil, their oppossing attitudes express an eternal stalemate that carries on today.

How bizarre it felt to live as if one were consciously marching in slow motion toward death without being able to do anything about it. p243

[Richard Jaffe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for this advance ARC in return for an honest review.

The Typewriter and the Guillotine juxtaposes Janet Flanner, an American Lesbian writing "Letters from Paris" for the New Yorker Magazine, with the plight of a German serial killer, Eugen Weidmann, who was the last person to be publicly executed in France by guillotine. Written in the style of The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, somehow author Mark Braude manages to make the descriptions of Flanner's Paris ( and later Europe as WWII approaches ) even more boring than Larson's descriptions of the in-fighting between the Architects of the Chicago World's Fair.

What intrigued me the most about this book was the portions given over to the reign of terror of Weidman, of whom I had no knowledge before this under taking. As interesting as these passages were, they were very short compared with the long chapters describing Flanner's various paramours and letters with her Editors. By the time Braude gets to the precipice of WWII Flanner's exploits wear thin as the writing style lets the reader down.

When reading the blurb, I had been hoping this would delve more into the romantic Paris of ex pats like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Dos Passos, Picasso, and Man Ray. Instead we are treated to the group led by Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas. The story bogs down as Flanner apparently has several female lovers over this time period, bouncing from one to another, and rather than focusing on the turmoil of Europe in the face of Hitler and the Nazi onslaught, we are focusing on which woman she is going to choose over the other.

I would have liked to know more about Weidmann and his effect on the French sensibility and even more about how the Nazi's tried to find as much information about the executed German after they occupied Paris. This would have been far more interesting than will Flanner choose Natalia Murray, Solita Solano or Noël Haskins Murphy to spend her life with. She was obviously a talented writer, contemporary of Hemingway, and a witness to history, but I would have liked to hear more about the latter than her romantic dalliances.

It pains me to give this 3 stars, but I am constrained from giving it 2 1/2 stars which it deserves.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Janet Flanner was the New Yorker magazine’s first foreign correspondent. Born in Indianapolis in 1892, Flanner relocated to New York after college and fell in with the Algonquin Roundtable and Greenwich Village social sets, where she met Harold Ross. Flanner left for Paris in 1922 with her partner, Solita Solano looking for “Beauty with a capital B”. Jane Grant (Ross’s wife) was so taken with the letters Flanner sent back, she persuaded Ross to include them as a feature in his newly conceived magazine, The New Yorker—thus was born the “Letter From” format that continues to this day.

Flanner began filing regular Letters From Paris, under the pen name Genêt, detailing the goings-on of Parisians in the decade following the devastation of WWI. Flanner’s lighthearted pieces were an immediate hit. Flanner landed a seat at the table with Hemingway which he would refer to in “A Moveable Feast”. Edith Wharton, Colette, Gertrude Stein and Josephine Baker all made appearances in her dispatches.

And then the Roaring Twenties segued into the increasingly alarming 1930s and Flanner shifted into more serious topics. She traveled to Nuremberg and got agreement from Ross to profile Adolf Hitler. It was the first significant profile of the German chancellor. She used her reporting to reveal broader insights. In a three-part profile of Hitler, she conveyed the Führer’s menacing appeal. He “has mystical tendencies, no common sense, and a Wagnerian taste for heroics and death. He was born loaded with vanities and has developed megalomania as his final decoration.”

She left France in October 1939 and did not return until after the liberation of Paris in August 1944. After returning to France, she moved past society gossip to write notable profiles of Philippe Pétain and Charles de Gaulle. In 1945, she visited Buchenwald days after its liberation, writing to her editor that the concentration camps were the essential story of the war. She also reported from the trials at Nuremberg.

Interestingly, one can step away from Flanner’s reportage only to find nearly identical language in today’s headlines—nearly five decades after her death.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fledgling writer Janet Flanner headed off to Paris to escape her mundane middle class life. She succeeded a bit more wildly than she imagined. When she arrived in 1925, Europe was still recovering from WWI and an unstable Germany already threatened the shaky peace. This is a fascinating, and quite frankly terrifying, journey to go on with Flanner considering it mirrors our current political climate.

As a history fan, I adored that this book covered an in-between time. We have a plethora of WWII books and a good amount of WWI, but the time in the middle is mostly ignored. This portion of Flanner's life was both pivotal to her development as a writer and correspondent and to the transition of Europe from one war to another.

There were some interesting facts I think could have been explored a bit deeper. For instance, Janet is a nice common name. Her mother's name is Mary. Her sister's name is Hildegarde. Talk about a break in pattern. What is that about? Everything that was discussed was more service level with Flanner when I really wanted a deeper dive.

At first I enjoyed the back and forth between Flanner chapters and Eugen Weidmann, the murderer featured in the subtitle, chapters. I expected some sort of intersection where the two met and the story really found its purpose. But that never happened. Flanner did report on the murder trial, but only briefly as her focus was elsewhere. I'm not sure why the author chose to combine these two disparate storylines when they would have been more successful as two separate books.

Overall, I quite enjoyed this glimpse into a woman's life from a century ago as she struggled with a changing world. As she watched war approaching yet again, she said multiple times in her many letters home, "I don't understand men." So relatable. Some things never change.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book but I think the marketing was slightly misleading. When I picked up this book I had the impression that it would be a sort of historical true crime tale about a serial killer in Paris. Instead, the focus of the book is without a doubt the reporter Janet Flanner, and the rise of fascism in 1930s Europe. Her story is clearly written with a lot of care, the author dives deep into her life as an expat leading up to the war followed by her work as a journalist upon the war's onset. He includes a lot of interesting discussion about a journalist's role and responsibilities in times of humanitarian crises that are incredibly relevant to our world today, and as a whole the book is intelligent, thought provoking, and entertaining.

The execution of the serial killer, Eugen Weidmann, is used as the opening hook, and then not much happens in his story until over a hundred pages in, where the account of his crimes is told very matter of factly without the same level of intrigue and color that Flanner's story received. I do not think his story added much to the book's overall themes, and the connection to Flanner's story was fairly weak. The inside cover of the book states that Flanner "became gripped" by his trial, and though we see that briefly her attention seems to move on very quickly. I think the book would've been better served with Flanner as the sole subject, maybe with a chapter or two relating to Weidmann as it pertained to her coverage of the story.

TDLR: a well researched, well written book more suited for lovers of history than lovers of true crime.

[Fay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Grand Central Publishing and Hachette Audio for my #gifted copies of The Typewriter and the Guillotine! #GrandCentralPublishing #GrandCentralPub #hachetteaudio

𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐲𝐩𝐞𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞: 𝐀𝐧 𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐉𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭, 𝐚 𝐆𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐊𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐯𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐖𝐖𝐈𝐈
𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫: 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐞
𝐍𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫: 𝐊𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧 𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐬
𝐏𝐮𝐛 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞: 𝐉𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝟐𝟎, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔 - 𝐎𝐮𝐭 𝐍𝐨𝐰!

The Typewriter and the Guillotine is a nonfiction book about Janet Flanner, a journalist who goes to Paris in 1922 to write for a magazine called The New Yorker. Tasked with writing about French art and culture, she tries to keep her “Letter from Paris” non-political, but as time goes on, that becomes more difficult with what is happening in Germany. Soon, Flanner becomes intrigued with a serial killer and the criminal case of Eugen Weidmann. This book is written in chapters that focus on Flanner and then focus on Weidmann and I liked the format. While I found both to be well-written and researched, I did gravitate more towards the Weidmann chapters.

While I have not read it, I have seen this one compared to Devil in the While City by Erik Lawson. I think non-fiction fans will enjoy this one and the unique blend of history and true crime.

🎧Narrated by Karen Cass, I thought the audiobook flowed well and I appreciated how she was able to elevate my listening experience. She was the perfect voice for this book and I think non-fiction lovers will enjoy this one on audio with Cass as the narrator.

[Krystle Meyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title of this nonfiction work is pretty self-explanatory, particularly in that the author tracks two the lives of two different people who were living in Paris between WWI and WWII. On the one hand, we have Janet Flanner, an American journalist who is sent to Paris to be a gal about town correspondent for the New Yorker. She writes fluffy “Letters from Paris” about what a lovely life she leads from the City of Lights. On occasion, she writes about other cities - like a weekend getaway to London. On one such trip, she is sent to Germany and observes first-hand the ramping up of the German war machine and the Nuremberg marches. She raises the alarm bells. On the other hand, there is a serial killer named Eugen Weidmann. After getting out of prison he comes to Paris intent on robbing / killing hapless victims. He enlists the assistance of a few other people and they’re largely able to do as they please. Once caught he is the last person who is publicly executed by guillotine - right on the eve of the occupation of Paris.

There are a trove of fiction and non-fiction works about the French Resistance and the period of the German Occupation. This book was interesting because it offered perspectives into the interregnum period - particularly since Flanner was sounding the alarm bells and trying to report out about Nazi Germany before they took over France.

This work definitely reads like a novel - highly recommend, especially for anyone interested in French or WWII history.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book centers around Janet Flanner, an American narrative journalist who served the magazine The New Yorker as a Paris correspondent over the course of the 1920s and 1930s. She wrote under the pen name "Genet". In particular, the books covers Flanner's reporting on the case of Eugen Weidmann, a German serial killer active in France in the late 1930s, as the specter of war with Nazi Germany grew larger and larger. Eugen Weidmann would be the last man to be executed by guillotine in France in 1939 and Janet Flanner covered the trial and execution.

Janet Flanner emerges as a captivating force, surrounded by iconic figures and a lifestyle many would envy in the 20's and 30's. Some of those chapters dragged for me. The story bogs down when Braude spends more time on Flanner's sex life and Paris World Fair of 1937 rather than focusing on the turmoil of Europe in the face of Hitler and the Nazi onslaught. I enjoyed the back and forth between Flanner's chapters and Weidmann's. Yet the alternating chapters between her and Weidmann did not always feel tightly integrated. I felt the parts on Weidmann were more interesting than reading Flanner's well researched biography. To me the book forced together two distinct narratives—a biography of a fascinating reporter and a true-crime story—without a strong, cohesive link. It was interesting story and I enjoyed the book in parts but not to the extent of what I had hoped for.

[Jeremy Booty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mark Braude has done us all a favor by re-introducing us to Janet Flanner. For nearly all of her adult life Janet Flanner wrote "letters" from Paris to the readers of the New Yorker Magazine. Through her eyes we witness the quirky, earthy, original, lives of the Parisians of the 1920's and 1930's. Among those who were her friends and acquaintances were F Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Beach, Picasso, Nancy Cunard, Josephine Baker and the owners of the many fine restaurants and cafe's then existing. Life in Paris was breathtakingly good for those who loved art and good food. The American dollar would buy quite a lot. She saw Lindbergh land and Hitler take power.

The other part of the book recounts the murders and subsequent trial of Eugen Weidmann a serial killer well before the term was coined. Braude relates the facts around the murders, the trial and subsequent punishment but the story is not all that compelling and does not mix well with the story of Janet Flanner. I thought is was like serving spaghetti and ice cream together. Both, independently are good but mixed together are bizarre. I would rather have had a book devoted exclusively to Flanner and would have liked to hear more from her. After reading this book I went on to buy a book of her writing during this period and it was wonderful. She had a fine eye and a wonderful, unique style of writing.

[Elena Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Typewriter and the Guillotine is a gripping and sophisticated work of narrative nonfiction that intertwines journalism, true crime, and political history with striking clarity. Mark Braude does far more than recount a criminal case he reconstructs a charged historical moment when art, extremism, and global upheaval collided on the streets of Paris.

At the center of the book is Janet Flanner, whose transformation from cultural correspondent to urgent political voice becomes the emotional and intellectual engine of the narrative. Braude captures the tension between The New Yorker’s breezy detachment and the gathering storm in Europe, showing how Flanner’s moral clarity pushed her beyond editorial constraints. Her evolution feels both personal and emblematic of a broader reckoning among journalists confronted with authoritarian rise.

The Weidmann case is rendered with chilling precision, but it never feels sensationalized. Instead, it operates as a prism through which the political violence of the era becomes tangible. The execution by guillotine, one of the last public ones in France, underscores the theatrical brutality of the time. By weaving biography with true crime and geopolitical context, Braude delivers a work that is as intellectually rigorous as it is suspenseful. This is history told with urgency and relevance.

[Abigail Singrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating, in-depth look at how one Paris correspondent covered the rise of Hitler.

This book gives the reader an inside look at the birth of the New Yorker magazine, how columnists wrote and developed their style and how Paris went from the Roaring 20's to a world war. Janet Flanner, not a literary name I knew, though she's friends with Hemingway, who also makes appearances in the book, begins writing "Letters from Paris." At first, she covers art, style, and popular gossip, but as Adolf Hitler's shadow begins to loom over Europe, the tone of her letters change as well.

The book has dual points of view: serial killer Eugen Weidmann, a German con-man who ends up guillotined in a Paris on the brink of war, and Flanner, as she builds a life and falls in love with multiple women.

As a sometimes journalist myself, I found this to be an illuminating look at these years in the industry. I also enjoyed Flanner's tracing the serial killer's history, though I have to admit, that felt a bit tacked on to me. I did enjoy the author's take on how the serial killer was made to answer for all the anger Parisians felt about Germans in general.

Thank you to the publisher for the complimentary copy of this book.

[Renee G · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought that The Typewriter and the Guillotine had the potential to be a really great book, however, it fell short of that for me. The subjects were both fascinating, but the attempt at copying Erik Larsen's format of dual story lines fell short. The book just did not present enough of a connection between the two people involved, i.e. the serial killer Eugen Weidmann and the journalist Janet Flanner or between a serial killer and European society during this period of time. The only connection seemed to be that she wrote a couple of articles about him for the New Yorker. There the connection seems to end which left me wondering why the serial killer was even included, and seemed more of an afterthought. My feeling is that the author would have been better off writing about one or the other. Janet Flanner's story was fascinating and presented an excellent view of pre- and WWII Europe and I got a very real sense of events and society at that time. Eugen Weidmann's story was also interesting but could have possibly been more so had his story been expanded into its own book. All that being said, it is still worth a read, especially as regards Janet Flanner's description of Europe and it society during this period.

[Brenda · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

1922 Paris - American Janet Flanner, "The Typewriter", is sent to Paris to write about the French culture, art and food for The New Yorker. While there, she experiences and sees the rise of Naziism and the coming of WWII which changes her focus on writing for Americans to know what is really going in France, Germany and Spain. Also, at this time, Eugen Weidmann, "The Guillotine", who is the son of two Nazi's and has been a thief for a while, is now in France and adds murder to his stealing. Flanner has a lot more to write about than what she was sent to do.

As the tensions rise politically and war is looming, Weidmann is going about his theft and murders.

I had not heard about this serial murderer, nor his public beheading in the city streets of Paris. This was the last public beheading. I was more interested in his story as I knew nothing about him. However, more of the book is about Flanner. I always walk away from books about the rise of Hitler and WWII thinking our country needs to do a better job educating students about Economy, History, and what leads countries to go to war. If we don't, we are destined to repeat history.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This was a wonderful book about the trailblazing female correspondent, Janet Flanner. Her personal life and how she watched the rise of Hitler. Theoretically this was also the story of Eugen Weidmann, a German serial killer. In many ways, this book felt very similar to Erik Larson's Devil in the White City, with a grand global story offset by a smaller story of a killer. But, I had the same issue here. The stories weren't balanced and I was drawn more to the historical story rather than the murders. I never felt the connection between the two storylines. Sure, Janet reported on him a bit, but it was such a minor part of her story, and he never interacted with her at all. The chapters about him where shorter, less frequent, and felt more like interruptions in the story of Janet's life. I really enjoyed learning about her, her friends, and their lives in Europe. I might have enjoyed it even more if Eugen's story didn't interrupt.

Thanks to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for a copy of the book. This review is my own opinion.