Mayhem by Robert Janes

Mayhem by J. Robert Janes

My review permalink.

J. Robert Janes is a Canadian author who has managed to create one of the more interesting detective duos among the many such pairs available in popular detective literature: a detective in the Paris police or sureté, Jean-Louis St. Cyr and a former Munich detective now in the Gestapo, Hermann Kolher. The two work as homicide detectives - after all even during the Occupation there were murders to be solved.

Mayhem is the first book in the series. As a persistent consumer of detective fiction, perhaps the most instructive things I can offer is to reveal that I am presently reading my third book in the series (Kaleidoscope after Carousel (St-Cyr and Kohler)). Mayhem provides much of the back story you need to understand the protagonists and their developing relationship. St. Cyr is attempting to hold on to his dignity and his patriotism and is quite wary of Kohler. Fortunately, Kohler is a detective first and a Gestapo only several steps distant and not a Nazi at any step however far removed.

The relationship between St. Cyr and Kohler is evolving; the relationships between them and their bosses and between those bosses and the competing German and French security forces is, to say the very least, complicated. Lines of authority are constantly blurred as theses forces vie for superiority. Among the goals of the leaders are the accumulation of loot and the exercise of brutal power. This complexity is a primary strength of Janes' writing that gives him a voice of vérité.

The clarity of his writing also suffers from this penchant for complexity. His stories are difficult to follow and are perhaps best appreciated like a Monet painting for the total picture they reveal.

I was thrilled to come across two more volumes (Sandman (St-Cyr and Kohler) and Mannequin (St-Cyr and Kohler)) in my favorite used bookstore, the Chequamegon Books in Washburn, Wisconsin. The Sandman attained recognition as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 1997. I do recommend reading Mayhem first as it provides much of the background for the protagonists.

***

 

Blogger Alex Waterhouse-Hayward on Janes and his Paris.

The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune 1870-71 by Alistair Horne

The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune 1870-71 by Alistair Horne

English historian Alistair Horne [A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 (New York Review Books Classics)] tells the story - really two stories - of the Franco-Prussian War's impact on Paris. First came the siege of Paris, a valiant struggle in its own right. A then after the downfall of Paris and the Prussian (partial) withdrawal came the Commune.

Horne does an excellent job telling these fascinating stories. I was surprised to learn that prior to this war the Prussians were somewhat lightly regarded as a military force - seen almost as a caricature of itself. The French under Louis-Napoleon (Napoleon III) expected to win the war and instead lost Alsace-Lorraine. As Horne emphasizes, this annexation planted the seeds for continued warfare between France and Germany. Bismarck opposed the annexation on those grounds, but lost the argument to the generals. The war culminated with the unification of Prussia and Germany into the new German Empire. In a scene foreshadowing Hitler's 1940 visit to Paris, the unification ceremony and elevation of King Wilhelm of Prussia to Emperor Wilhelm of the German Empire took place at the Versailles.

Louis-Napoleon and his Second Empire were given the boot in September 1870 even before the final surrender and the Third Republic was born. The Prussians kept coming and put Paris under a siege that lasted some 120 days. About two months later the Commune came into being as the first workers' republic (albeit small and short-lived). The establishment of the Commune led to a Parisian civil war.

Horne makes good use of the available source to bring the despair, hunger, terrors, thrills, and heroics to life. My only quibble is Horne's clear antipathy to the leftists; he assigns more derogatory terms to the Communards than the forces of reaction despite the fact that those forces certainly executed far more Parisians than the Communards. Still, his bias doesn't seem to interfere with his objectivity and his writing made the book a joy to read.

***

Why was Horne Bush's favorite historian?