The time is May 1940. There is a rather sordid murder. The victim is an American who works at a rather prestigious law firm. His girlfriend, Sally King, does not believe the police are interested in finding the truth. All of Paris is distracted by the fact that the French and Belgian forces may not be able to hold off the German advance. She believes that her boyfriend was killed because of something in his law firm. She goes to the American Embassy to find help and enlists the services of one of the ambassador's right hand men. And when he starts to look in to the situation - he finds more than he bargins for. Thus begins the web of deception, lies, and truths that took place before the German occupation in The Alibi Club by Francine Mathews.
This mixture of espionage, science, fact and fiction makes a good read. Who else could manage to mix a Josephine Baker homage character with Frederic Joliot-Curie and the race to figure out how to split the atom? She gives us a good sense of the time and place - the rush of refugees trying to escape on the roads south of Paris, the burning of the embassy's papers, the knowledge of what law firms and banks did business with the Nazis and the choices made, of who would stay in Paris and who would go. And meanwhile, Sally is convinced that in this chaos, the killer will go free.
Mathews has a good thriller on her hands here. She manages to weave in a large cast of characters - a mix of real people and made up ones - with the oncoming sense of panic and doom that the Nazi advance brings. Each chapter brings the Germans closer to the city. And the tension in Paris arises. Worth a look.
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